Two Cuban content creators, Ernesto Ricardo Medina and Kamil Zayas Pérez, were “preventively” arrested by authorities for carrying out “propaganda against the constitutional order.”
They are part of the independent audiovisual project El4tico, which has thousands of followers on social media.
According to a statement from the Holguín Prosecutor’s Office, the two were “inciting the people, members of the Revolutionary Armed Forces and the Ministry of the Interior to change the constitutional order of the Republic of Cuba; and defame the actions of the country’s political and social institutions.”
The Cuban Public Ministry, in turn, responded that investigative procedures are underway to collect evidence and conclude the process. Meanwhile, they remain in detention.
Content creators use social media to offer a critical view of Cuban reality. In their publications, they question socialist policies implemented by the dictatorship in the midst of the island’s worst crisis in decades.
According to reports from human rights organizations, agents working for the regime invaded the homes of influencers in the Piedra Blanca neighborhood and confiscated computers, phones, cameras and other equipment used in their work.
The U.S. State Department condemned the arrests through the Office of Western Hemisphere Affairs. Human rights organizations and the Inter-American Press Association (AIAP) also spoke out about the case.
The two were taken to the headquarters of the Holguín Criminal Police Station, known as a center for torture, violent interrogations and degrading treatment.
Dictator Miguel Díaz-Canel and his allies deny the existence of political prisoners on the island and accuse members of the opposition of acting as “mercenaries” in the service of the United States.
