Havana (AFP) – One of the figures of independent journalism in Cuba, Yoani Sanchez, and dissident Berta Soler, leader of the Ladies in White movement, were arrested Thursday in Havana, according to opposition media and relatives.
Published on: 05/11/2026 - 22:22 Modified on: 05/11/2026 - 23:19
The 51-year-old journalist was "kidnapped by the political police" in the morning as she left her home in the Nuevo Vedado neighborhood to go shopping, said 14ymedio, the online newspaper that Yoani Sanchez founded and has run since 2014.
“We still have no news from Yoani Sanchez,” her husband, journalist Reinaldo Escobar, wrote on Facebook several hours later.
The leader of the Ladies in White movement, Berta Soler, 63, was also arrested in the company of another member of the collective, Maria Cristina Labrada, "in the middle of the street when both were leaving the house" which serves as the organization's headquarters, Angel Moya, the dissident's husband, told AFP.
“We don’t know where they were taken,” he added.
“We demand to know immediately where Soler and Labrada are,” denounced the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights, a Cuban NGO based in Spain, on the social network
The Ladies in White movement, made up of mothers and wives of opponents arrested in 2003 under Fidel Castro (1959-2006), was awarded the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize in 2005. The women who are part of it dress in white as a sign of peaceful protest.
Berta Soler is regularly the subject of arrests lasting from several hours to a few days. She is also frequently prevented from leaving her home by the authorities.
Yoani Sanchez, for her part, won the Ortega y Gasset prize in 2008, one of the most important distinctions for journalism in Spanish. The same year, she was included in the ranking of the 100 most influential people in the world by the American magazine Time.
His online newspaper, critical of the management of the government of the communist island, regularly denounces the censorship and harassment exercised by the authorities against opponents.
Independent Cuban journalists regularly face pressure from the authorities.
According to a communications law passed in 2023, state media, controlled by the Communist Party, are the only legal Cuban media on the island.
However, several independent online media have emerged in recent years and have until now survived as best they could in a legal vacuum. Cubans can only access it through a virtual private network (VPN).
The newspaper 14ymedio claims that several opposition media contributors have been arrested in the street in recent weeks, then released after receiving fines or warnings.
© 2026 AFP
The content you are trying to access does not exist or is no longer available.
