Independent Journalists in Havana Surrounded After a Week of Detentions

What happened

At least five independent journalists woke up this Friday in Havana to find State Security agents or patrol cars outside their homes, keeping them from leaving. They themselves reported it on social media.

The first to raise the alarm was Yoani Sánchez, director of 14ymedio. «There is a political police operation at the foot of my building to keep me from leaving home this Friday,» she wrote on X at 8:39 a.m. Camila Acosta reported at 10:11 that the political police were preventing her and her husband, writer and former political prisoner Ángel Santiesteban Prats, from leaving. Adelth Bonne Gamboa posted a video showing a patrol car at the entrance of his building. «So, with patrol car 444 at the entrance of my building to keep me from going out into the street, my November 6, 2026 begins,» he wrote.

Journalist Yunia Figueredo said an agent came to her home to warn her that she could not attend the U.S. Embassy event. When she asked whether he had a warrant, the agent replied that his word was enough. Boris González Arenas also reported surveillance outside his home. Content creator Anna Sofía Benítez Silvente (Anna Bensi) said she and her mother were under siege, with plainclothes agents at every exit of their building and patrol cars on Calle Ancha. Activists Marthadela Tamayo and Osvaldo Navarro had a patrol car outside their home during the morning.

Journalist José Raúl Gallego, based in Mexico, wrote on Facebook that the goal was to stop them from attending «an event being held today at the U.S. Embassy in Cuba.» As of noon, the diplomatic mission had not published anything about that event. Acosta, by contrast, did not mention the Embassy. She spoke of «a wave of repression following the results of the midterm elections.»

For its part, the collective Fuera de la Caja said two of its members, Karel Daniel Hernández Bosques and Mauro Reigosa Pérez, were summoned this Friday to the police unit on Aguilera Street, in the Diez de Octubre municipality. According to the group, Karel went in at 9:00 and was still inside two hours later. «We are living through a wave of repression against all Cubans who make content or engage in political activism,» the spokesperson said in a video.

Context

The sieges this Friday follow a week of detentions:

• Monday, November 2: Adelth Bonne Gamboa was arrested, handcuffed and released hours later with a 3,000-peso fine under Decree-Law 370 over his posts. Police confiscated his computer, phone, camera, tripods, headphones and microphone.
• Tuesday the 3rd: Camila Acosta was detained on the street without a court order. She said she was handcuffed, had her phone seized and was kept handcuffed behind her back in a cell for more than an hour. She was released without charges, but was asked to sign a warning form for «instigating crime.» She refused.
• Thursday the 5th: Yoani Sánchez was released after nearly nine hours in detention. According to her account in a video posted on Facebook, three men in plainclothes forced her into a patrol car without identifying themselves and took her to the fourth police station on Infanta Street, in El Cerro. She was charged with several offenses, including propaganda against the constitutional order.

U.S. Deputy Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Juan Pablo Segura called Sánchez's detention on Thursday part of «the Cuban regime's ongoing campaign to crush the independent press.» The Embassy reposted his message in Spanish.

This is not the first time. On September 18, State Security mounted similar operations outside the homes of Sánchez, Acosta, Bonne, Tamayo and Navarro to keep them from attending «Noches americanas,» a cultural gathering organized by the Embassy. In addition, Henry Constantín, director of La Hora de Cuba, has been held in pretrial detention at Kilo 7 in Camagüey since September, according to a report released this Friday by the organization Justicia 11J.

Acosta said the surveillance outside her home happens «40 or 50 times a year.» The Cuban Observatory for Human Rights documented more than 3,000 repressive actions in Cuba between January and September of this year.

Fuera de la Caja, a collective founded in January 2026 by people in their twenties, had already faced police pressure. In July, Amanda and Abel Andrés Navarro were held for more than eight hours at the same Aguilera unit. In October, a court sentenced Anna Sofía Benítez Silvente and her mother to two years of restricted liberty for publishing images of an Interior Ministry agent.

How it affects you

For people living in Cuba, these operations show how freedom of movement and freedom of information are restricted in practice. Journalists report that they are prevented from leaving without a court order, and that when they ask for explanations, they are told «come with us» and taken to a cell. This reduces independent coverage of what happens in the streets, including problems the official press does not reflect.

Sánchez added an account of what she saw in the El Cerro cell: most of the detainees were there because they did not have a Havana address on their identity card, and they were being deported to their home provinces. According to her, they spoke of leaving their children in the care of neighbors before being transferred. This practice rests on Decree-Law 217, from 1997, which requires prior authorization to live in the capital. Human Rights Watch documented some 20,000 forced expulsions under that rule. An Interior Ministry operation on November 2 in San Miguel del Padrón left 71 people detained.

What's next

Sánchez faces a charge of propaganda against the constitutional order, and it is not known how the case will proceed. She and Acosta both said they will keep working. «I am not going to turn them off,» Sánchez said of her microphones. It remains to be seen whether the summonses of Fuera de la Caja end in fines or prosecutions.

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