For Cuban journalists, exile no protection from Havana's threats
Madrid, Spain — The WhatsApp message read: “We know exactly where to find you.” And it came with an image and a video that showed the home of José Jasán Nieves Cárdenas.
The Cuban journalist fled Cuba in 2019. Now, he says, it seems Havana is no longer content with forcing him out of his country. It wants to pursue him and his family abroad.
The editor of independent news website El Toque is one of dozens of journalists and activists who say they are still being threatened three years after mass protests.
The demonstrations — the largest against the Cuban government since the 1959 revolution — began on July 11, 2021, as discontent grew over food shortages, the pandemic response and the economy.
The government responded with the arrests of hundreds of people, many charged with sedition.
But three years on, journalists who covered the protest or who report on other sensitive issues are still threatened or harassed.
Nieves had covered the 2021 protests. But by that point, he was already in exile. He chose to leave in October 2019, when police placed him under house arrest.
“Under the Obama government, the Cuban government had tolerated independent media, but it seemed now as if the attitude was more belligerent,” he told VOA.
And while the protest coverage led to renewed harassment, he believes El Toque’s reports about how a clandestine market for dollars in Cuba is forcing up inflation are also irritating the government.
He told VOA the threatening video, sent on June 25, appears to be taken from a car.
“They confirmed that they are here and want to silence us. You take the threat seriously, and we are taking the legal steps we can. I have two young children,” Nieves told VOA by telephone from Miami.
Nieves believes the messages were sent from Cuban state agents because they used the names "Mabel" and "Franco," which were used by police agents who interrogated him when he was still in Cuba.
Nieves has filed a complaint to the FBI. The FBI did not comment on the incident when contacted by VOA.
VOA contacted the Cuban Embassy in Madrid and the government’s International Press Center in Havana for a response. Neither responded to the requests for comment.
“The recent threats made against El Toque editor José Jasán Nieves Cárdenas are troubling,” Katherine Jacobsen, program coordinator at the Committee to Protect Journalists, said in a statement. “It is vital that Nieves can work in exile without concern for his safety and thoroughly investigate the source of the threats against him.”
Other journalists say they were held in rough conditions after being detained during protests and worry for family still in Cuba.
Orelvis Cabrera Sotolongo, a presenter for VOA sister network Radio Television Marti, spent 37 days in prison.
“I suffered physical and psychological torture. There was not enough food. They left this awful yellow light on for days, so we did not know if it was night or day. It damaged my eyesight,” he told VOA.
In November 2021, he says authorities gave him an ultimatum: Face 30 years in jail for a series of charges, including the psychological corruption of minors and spreading enemy propaganda, or leave Cuba.
He went into exile, not knowing if he would ever see his family again.
“My family is still facing threats in Cuba. I can never go back. When you go into exile, they decide for you. You don’t have much time to plan,” he said from his new home in Miami.
It is not only journalists who have been targeted over their involvement in the 2021 protests, according to Prisoners Defenders International, a Madrid-based rights group.
Luís Frómeta Compte, a German citizen born in Cuba, was in Havana at the time of the protests and filmed what happened on his mobile phone.
The short video, showing clashes between police and protesters, was seized by police.
Police first detained Frómeta at a protest on July 12. Five days later, he was arrested again. As a German citizen who had lived in the country for 40 years, Frómeta assumed he would soon be released.
But he remained in prison, was denied contact with an independent lawyer and was held incommunicado for days.
In 2021, Frómeta was convicted of sedition and is currently serving a sentence, reduced on appeal, to 15 years.
He is among 17 people subject to "arbitrary arrest" and deprived of their rights, Prisoners Defenders International says.
In June, the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions condemned Cuba for the treatment of Frómeta and the others. The U.N. body noted that “the arrest is arbitrary” and contravenes nine articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
The Cuban government did not respond to a request for comment from the U.N. on its findings.
Javier Larrondo, president of Prisoners Defenders International, said Frómeta was a frail man who may not survive jail.
“It is like a death sentence for him. He is completely innocent, and this conviction is a farce. I want to believe that the German government will act to secure his release,” he said.
Prisoners Defenders International has documented more than 1,500 political prisoners in Cuban jails, including journalists and activists, according to a July report.
“Journalists are the most targeted section of the population because they tell the world what is going on,” Larrondo said.