The young man who broadcast the first images of the historic July 11 protests was transferred to the prison known as Técnico de Guanajay
14ymedio, Madrid, May 12, 2026 – Yoan de la Cruz, who livestreamed the first protests of 11 July 2021 in San Antonio de los Baños and was detained last Saturday following a police operation at his home, has been transferred to the prison known as Técnico de Guanajay (Artemisa). A relative confirmed this to 14ymedio, requesting anonymity, and explained that the authorities want to accuse the young man of having “financially helped some prisoners who were going to carry out sabotage.”
According to the same source, however, “they have not been able to link him to what they are alleging, they have not been able to tie him to anything,” so “there is a possibility they will release him soon.” During the search of his home, his relatives said, authorities not only “took his cellphone and his computer,” but also the electronic devices belonging to his mother (a cellphone and a computer) and his grandmother’s cellphone. “Punishing the whole family,” another relative remarked.
“They feel completely free to do whatever they want with Yoan,” the first source lamented. “They can take him, interrogate him, detain him whenever they want, because he is a July 11 prisoner, and his sentence does not end until December of this year, and that’s just how it is.”
“They can take him, interrogate him, detain him whenever they want, because he is a July 11 prisoner and his sentence does not end until December”
The family, the legal organization Cubalex denounced on Monday, suffered “a severe emotional crisis,” especially his mother and his 87-year-old grandmother, “who was recently hospitalized.” The NGO stated on its social media that the young man “was returned to prison,” which demonstrates “the fragility of freedom in Cuba and the permanent risk of revocation against those persecuted for political reasons.”
On Saturday, the day of the police operation, one of the relatives told this newspaper that De la Cruz was working and complying with the regulations imposed since his release from prison. The young man was first detained on July 23, 2021, after authorities located him for broadcasting from San Antonio de los Baños the images that sparked the July 11 protests throughout the Island. In March 2022 he was sentenced to six years in prison, and just over a month later he was released after his sentence was modified to five years of imprisonment without confinement.
Presented by the authorities as an alternative to prison, the measure works in practice as supervised release. The convicted person is required to comply with restrictions, subjected to police monitoring and exposed to any alleged violation being used as grounds to send them back to prison.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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