Denouncing police threatsCuban journalist says won't 'shut up' after brief detention

AFP
Award-winning Cuban journalist Yoani Sanchez was freed after a brief detention in Havana
Award-winning Cuban journalist Yoani Sanchez was freed after a brief detention in Havana
© AFP/File

Prominent Cuban journalist Yoani Sanchez denounced police threats against her on Friday, one day after authorities detained her for several hours.

Sanchez, who has won numerous awards for her reporting on Cuba, was arrested on Thursday as she was leaving her home in Havana. 

Several human rights groups and press freedom organizations condemned her detention. She was released on the same day.

"They want me to shut up, they want me to leave, they want me to be silenced," the founder and director of online outlet 14ymedio posted on social media the day after her arrest.

Two other prominent Cuban activists were also arrested for several hours: Ladies in White movement leader Berta Soler and member Maria Cristina Labrada.

In a YouTube video posted on Friday, Sanchez said "three individuals in plain clothes" arrested her and took her to a Havana police station.

Authorities charged her with "several counts, including that of propaganda against the constitutional order," Sanchez said.

"They want me to turn off the microphones. But I'm not going to turn them off," she said, going on to describe what she saw in the police station.

"I was horrified to discover that dozens, even hundreds of Cubans are arrested every day in Havana because they don't have a capital city address on their ID card. They're called 'illegals' and are expelled back to their provinces."

In 2008, Sanchez won the Ortega y Gasset Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in Spanish-language journalism.

That same year, Time Magazine listed her as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.

A 2023 law authorizes only state-run media outlets in Cuba.

Independent online media outlets have cropped up in the past decade, although island residents can only access them through VPNs.

In the 2026 World Press Freedom Index published by the NGO Reporters Without Borders, Cuba ranks 160th out of 180 countries.

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