Cuba: “El4tico” Creators 6-Months in Prison, No Trial Date
Cubalex, ICLEP, the US and international organizations are demanding the release of Kamil Zayas Perez and Ernesto Ricardo Medina.
HAVANA TIMES – This Thursday, August 6, marked six months since the detention of Kamil Zayas Perez and Ernesto Ricardo Medina, creators of the independent digital platform El4tico. Both were arrested by Cuba’s State Security in February and charged with “propaganda against the constitutional order” and “incitement to commit crimes.”
Ricardo Medina’s mother, Mileydi Machín, also marked the date on her social media. “Six long months that my son has been imprisoned,” she wrote. “I feel sorrow for all those who still cling to an obsolete, decaying, and genocidal system that has separated and destroyed Cuban families for decades.”
The independent organization Cubalex denounced that Zayas Perez and Ricardo Medina have spent six months in pretrial detention “without the Prosecutor’s Office filing formal charges or setting a date for an oral trial.”
The two young men remain held at the Holguin Provincial Detention Center. Cubalex argues that the prolonged use of pretrial detention is a measure that, “under international human rights standards, should be exceptional, necessary, and subject to effective judicial oversight.”
According to Cubalex, Zayas Perez and Ricardo Medina receive visits every two weeks and have remained in good spirits despite the circumstances of their imprisonment.
During these months in prison, the two have managed to send messages through relatives and friends. In one letter, Kamil Zayas wrote: “It has been worth it. Do not give up. Let us now build a people that is just and good. We are counting on you. Long live a dignified Cuba.”
Ricardo Medina, for his part, released a handwritten letter through his mother in which he denounced pressure from State Security to record a video retracting his views. He refused and stressed that expressing regret “would be a lie.”
Cubalex maintains that the proceedings against both young men have been riddled with “multiple irregularities that undermine the legality of the process.”
The Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and Press (ICLEP) also called on Thursday for the immediate release of the two men. “Expressing critical opinions and documenting the reality of a community should never become grounds for imprisonment,” the organization said.
The offense of “propaganda against the constitutional order,” introduced in Cuba’s 2022 Penal Code, punishes any critical expression that the State considers to be “incitement against the social order or the socialist State,” without clearly defining what actions constitute such a crime. Human rights organizations argue that this ambiguity turns it into a legal instrument for persecuting dissent.
International organizations such as Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights have condemned the imprisonment of El4tico’s creators and are calling for their release, along with that of other artists, journalists, and government critics jailed for expressing dissenting views. As of today, the NGO Prisoners Defenders reports that there are 1,329 political prisoners in Cuba.
First published in Spanish by 14ymedio and translated and posted in English by Havana Times.