Figueredo refused to comply with a June 23 police summons, reviewed by CPJ. On that same day she received three private number phone calls warning her that a police investigation had been opened against her and Correa for “dangerousness,” the journalists told CPJ. On June 16, a local police officer parked outside the journalists’ home told them that they weren’t allowed to leave in an incident witnessed by others in the neighborhood.

“The Cuban government must halt its harassment of journalists Yunia Figueredo and Frank Correa, and allow them to continue their work with the community media outlet, Amanecer Habanero,” said CPJ U.S., Canada and Caribbean Program Coordinator Katherine Jacobsen. “Reporters should not be threatened into silence with legal orders.” 

Cuba’s private media companies have come under increased scrutiny from a new communication law banning all unapproved, non-state media and prohibiting them from receiving international funding and foreign training.

Amanecer Habanero is a member of the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and the Press (ICLEP), a network of six community media outlets, which has strongly condemned the actions of Cuban authorities against Figueredo, who became director of the outlet earlier this year.

In a statement, ICLEP said Figueredo has been the victim of an escalating campaign of intimidation by Cuban law enforcement, including verbal threats by state security agents; permanent police surveillance without a court order; restriction of her freedom of movement; psychological intimidation against her family; and police summonses without legal basis in connection with her work denouncing government.

Cuba’s private media companies have come under increased threat from a new communication law banning all unapproved, non-state media and prohibiting them from receiving international funding and foreign training.

Cuban authorities did not immediately reply to CPJ’s emailed request for comment.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by CPJ Staff.

Valle left Cuba for the United States on Wednesday, June 5, after serving nearly three years in prison, according to local press freedom group the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and the Press (ICLEP), and the Miami Herald. 

Valle was sentenced to five years in prison in July 2022 for contempt and sharing “enemy propaganda” in connection with a video posted on his YouTube channel, Delibera, of pro-democracy leaflets thrown from a building in the capital, Havana. 

ICLEP reported that Valle Roca arrived in the United States on humanitarian parole, and that his release from prison was on the condition that he leave Cuba. 

“Although we welcome Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca’s prison release, it is disconcerting that the Cuban government has forced Valle into exile rather than allowing him to do his job,” said CPJ U.S., Canada and Caribbean Program Coordinator Katherine Jacobsen. “The Cuban government should allow journalists to work freely, without fear of imprisonment or forced exile.” 

ICLEP general manager, Normando Hernández confirmed in a text message to CPJ that Valle had safely landed in Miami with his wife on Wednesday.

“After almost three years of unjust imprisonment, Yuri is finally free,” Hernández wrote on the ICLEP’s website. 

Valle’s expulsion of Valle Roca is the latest example of a crackdown by Cuban authorities on independent media that began following street protests in July 2021 which began in response to longstanding frustrations with the government and restrictions on rights and scarcity of food and medicines. As a result of the government crackdown, journalists, activists and other civil society members were either jailed or forced to leave the island.

Cuban law prohibits the establishment of independent media organizations outside the country’s socialist state system. Journalism is not one of the legally permitted professions under Cuba’s 2021 legalization of private business activity. Cuba’s updated ‘Social Communication Law,’ approved by Cuba’s National Assembly on May 26, 2023, prohibits the dissemination of information that aims to “subvert the constitutional order and destabilize the socialist State of law and social justice.”

Valle had been held in pretrial detention since June 15, 2021, when he was arrested after police summoned him to allegedly close a 2020 contempt investigation. In June 2022, prosecutors requested a six-year sentence in his case.

Valle has suffered from multiple health conditions during his detention, including complications related to his previous hunger strike, according to CPJ research.

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

On April 1, at approximately 10 a.m., two agents from the Department of State Security, commonly referred to as the political police, stopped Corzo in the street in the Colón municipality in the western Matanzas province, and demanded to know where he was headed and what he was doing, Corzo said in a video statement published by the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and of the Press (ICLEP), a press freedom organization which also publishes and distributes seven community newspapers in Cuba. Corzo is ICLEP’s executive director and was on his way to a reporting assignment, according to Normando Hernández, ICLEP’s general manager, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app.

Corzo refused to answer the agents’ questions and got into a taxi and drove away, when he noticed that two men on motorcycles were following him. As soon as Corzo got out of the car, the two unidentified men dressed as civilians approached Corzo, repeatedly punched and kicked him, and left him lying on the ground, according to an ICLEP report and news reports. The men did not exchange any words with Corzo, nor take any of his possessions, according to the same sources.

“We are appalled by the brutal assault on Cuban journalist Alberto Corzo, which suspiciously occurred just minutes after he refused to provide information to the political police on his way to a reporting assignment,” said Ana Cristina Núñez, CPJ’s Latin America and the Caribbean senior researcher. “Cuban authorities must conduct a transparent and independent investigation into the attack and bring those responsible to justice.”

A driver who was passing by the area saw Corzo lying injured on the street and took him to the Mario Muñoz Monroy Hospital, where staff were not able to do the necessary examinations due to lack of medical materials, Corzo said in the video statement.  

Corzo’s brother transferred the journalist to the Faustino Hospital, where he was diagnosed with a dislocated clavicle and hospitalized to treat his injuries, Corzo said. Corzo was released from the hospital on April 5.

Upon being released, Corzo went to the local police office to file a complaint, but the agent in charge said he could only take a statement, Corzo said in the video. “I accuse the regime, the dictatorship, and the political police of being responsible for the this attack I suffered,” the journalist said.

Cuban authorities have repeatedly targeted ICLEP journalists and outlets with various forms of harassment in retaliation for their independent reporting, including raids, detentions, and other forms of coercion. Corzo has been previously targeted with several intimidation tactics by Cuban authorities, including being arrested and interrogated, as documented by CPJ.

On December 7, 2021, at about 8:30 p.m., two unidentified men with their faces covered broke into the home of Mabel Páez, the director of the community newspaper El Majadero de Artemisa, one of seven ICLEP publications, and attacked her, as documented by CPJ at the time. The identity of the attackers remains unknown and ICLEP is unaware of any action conducted by authorities to investigate this incident, Hernández told CPJ.

“This is the modus operandi that the political police in Cuba are used to, to intimidate those who work for press freedom,” Hernández told CPJ, referring to the Corzo and Páez cases.

CPJ emailed the National Revolutionary Police and the Ministry of the Interior for comment but did not receive a response. 

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.

On April 1, at approximately 10 a.m., two agents from the Department of State Security, commonly referred to as the political police, stopped Corzo in the street in the Colón municipality in the western Matanzas province, and demanded to know where he was headed and what he was doing, Corzo said in a video statement published by the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and of the Press (ICLEP), a press freedom organization which also publishes and distributes seven community newspapers in Cuba. Corzo is ICLEP’s executive director and was on his way to a reporting assignment, according to Normando Hernández, ICLEP’s general manager, who spoke to CPJ via messaging app.

Corzo refused to answer the agents’ questions and got into a taxi and drove away, when he noticed that two men on motorcycles were following him. As soon as Corzo got out of the car, the two unidentified men dressed as civilians approached Corzo, repeatedly punched and kicked him, and left him lying on the ground, according to an ICLEP report and news reports. The men did not exchange any words with Corzo, nor take any of his possessions, according to the same sources.

“We are appalled by the brutal assault on Cuban journalist Alberto Corzo, which suspiciously occurred just minutes after he refused to provide information to the political police on his way to a reporting assignment,” said Ana Cristina Núñez, CPJ’s Latin America and the Caribbean senior researcher. “Cuban authorities must conduct a transparent and independent investigation into the attack and bring those responsible to justice.”

A driver who was passing by the area saw Corzo lying injured on the street and took him to the Mario Muñoz Monroy Hospital, where staff were not able to do the necessary examinations due to lack of medical materials, Corzo said in the video statement.  

Corzo’s brother transferred the journalist to the Faustino Hospital, where he was diagnosed with a dislocated clavicle and hospitalized to treat his injuries, Corzo said. Corzo was released from the hospital on April 5.

Upon being released, Corzo went to the local police office to file a complaint, but the agent in charge said he could only take a statement, Corzo said in the video. “I accuse the regime, the dictatorship, and the political police of being responsible for the this attack I suffered,” the journalist said.

Cuban authorities have repeatedly targeted ICLEP journalists and outlets with various forms of harassment in retaliation for their independent reporting, including raids, detentions, and other forms of coercion. Corzo has been previously targeted with several intimidation tactics by Cuban authorities, including being arrested and interrogated, as documented by CPJ.

On December 7, 2021, at about 8:30 p.m., two unidentified men with their faces covered broke into the home of Mabel Páez, the director of the community newspaper El Majadero de Artemisa, one of seven ICLEP publications, and attacked her, as documented by CPJ at the time. The identity of the attackers remains unknown and ICLEP is unaware of any action conducted by authorities to investigate this incident, Hernández told CPJ.

“This is the modus operandi that the political police in Cuba are used to, to intimidate those who work for press freedom,” Hernández told CPJ, referring to the Corzo and Páez cases.

CPJ emailed the National Revolutionary Police and the Ministry of the Interior for comment but did not receive a response. 

This content originally appeared on Committee to Protect Journalists and was authored by Committee to Protect Journalists.