Authorities must release imprisoned artists and halt the escalating repression against critical voices

Voces Presas relaunches its global campaign to denounce the misuse of Cuba’s legal system, arbitrary detention, and imprisonment as mechanisms of brutal punishment

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

10 April 2026

[New York | Paris | London | Stockholm] – In the wake of the Cuban authorities’ recent announcement of the release of more than 2,000 individuals, serious concerns remain regarding the continued detention of artists, writers, cultural workers and others for using their creative expression as a form of dissent. ARC – Artists at Risk Connection, PEN International, and Civil Rights Defenders (CRD) announce a new phase of Voces Presas, the international campaign that, since 2022, has highlighted the cases of Cuban artists imprisoned for exercising their right to freedom of expression, and called for their release. The campaign, which includes profiles and videos on each artist, urges that artistic freedom of expression be guaranteed on the island.

This edition of the Voces Presas campaign presents the stories of poet and writer José Gabriel Barrenechea Chávez, arbitrary detained  and sentenced in January 2026 to six years in prison, and musician Fernando Almenares Rivera (Nando OBDC), unjustly sentenced to five years’ imprisonment in January 2026. 

Their stories illustrate the methods of censorship and repression employed by the Cuban state. Their cases add to those of the following incarcerated artists:

• Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara – multidisciplinary artist, detained on 11 July 2021 and sentenced to five years in prison in 2022 –  should be released this year upon completion of his sentence. On 23 March, a court denied his habeas corpus petition. Three days later, he began a hunger strike after denouncing threats to his life in prison, which he maintained for eight days. 
• María Cristina Garrido Rodríguez, poet, was detained on 12 July 2021 and sentenced to seven years in prison. 
• Maykel Castillo Pérez (Maykel Osorbo), musician, was detained on 18 May 2021 and sentenced to nine years in prison.

On 12 March and 2 April 2026, Cuban authorities announced the release of political prisoners in separate groups, including more than 2,000 individuals reportedly covered by an Easter pardon. However, these announcements require careful scrutiny on the basis of  international human rights standards. The lack of transparency regarding the identities of those released, as well as the discrepancy between official announcements and verified releases, raises serious concerns about their scope and implementation.

According to human rights organisations, including Justicia 11J, only between 16 and 27 individuals detained for political reasons are confirmed to have been released following the March announcement. These partial, opaque, and selective measures reflect the systemic nature of repression in Cuba.

In addition to criminalisation of critical expression, Cuban authorities routinely carry out sustained campaigns of harassment against the independent and dissident artistic community. This trend has been documented in the report Método Cuba: Testimonies of Independent Artists on Forced Exile, produced by ARC, PEN International and Cubalex.

Voces Presas also underscores another dimension of this repressive pattern: its racial component. Four of the eight profiles highlighted by the campaign correspond to Afro-descendant or racialised individuals.

This evidence makes clear that in Cuba, political imprisonment and persecution do not end at the prison cell. They extend into racial dynamics, family and labour relations, and the material conditions of survival. In a context marked by power cuts, food shortages and a collapsed transport system, the burden of punishment also spreads to households, where entire families must sustain prison visits, medicines, food and care that the penitentiary system fails to provide.

ARC, PEN International and Civil Rights Defenders call on the Cuban authorities to immediately and unconditionally release all imprisoned artists, including Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, Maykel Castillo Pérez, María Cristina Garrido Rodríguez, Gabriel Barrenechea, and Fernando Almenares, who have been unjustly imprisoned for their critical voices and for using art as a means of critical social engagement. The co-signing organisations also call for an end to the use of the criminal justice system as a tool of political persecution against critical artists and journalists, as well as against other forms of civic expression.

Furthermore, we call on the international community, and particularly governments in Latin America and the European Union, to ensure active diplomatic monitoring through their embassies in Cuba, including case tracking, prison visits, and public demands for accountability, as well as the international recognition of critical artists, writers, and journalists as human rights defenders, with the protection that this entails.

ARC – Artists at Risk Connection is an international organization committed to promoting and advancing artistic freedom worldwide. We work to protect artists and cultural workers who are at risk because of their creative expression, often connected to their identities or roles within their communities. ARC helps artists at risk overcome challenges like persecution, censorship, threats, and violence from both state and non-state actors. artistsatriskconnection.org 

PEN International is the world’s foremost association of writers dedicated to  the celebration of literature and the protection of freedom of expression worldwide. Founded in London in 1921, PEN International connects an international community of writers through over 130 PEN centres in more than 90 countries, including the PEN Cuba Centre in Exile. pen-international.org

Civil Rights Defenders, founded in 1982 as the Swedish Helsinki Committee for Human Rights, supports human rights defenders in some of the world’s most repressive regions on four continents. Today, we advance people’s rights globally through advocacy, litigation and public campaigns. crd.org