Anna Bensi and her mother Caridad Silvente / Image taken from social media
The Inter American Press Association denounces that this type of harassment against independent journalists and their relatives has become constant in Cuba.
Por 14ymedio
HAVANA TIMES – The wave of repression in Cuba has continued intensifying in recent days. Interrogations and arbitrary criminal proceedings are being used to stop any form of critical expression.
Caridad Silvente, the mother of YouTuber Anna Sofía Benítez Silvente (“Anna Bensi” on social media) was interrogated at a police station in Alamar, in Havana, and now faces criminal proceedings for having circulated images of the agent who delivered her police summons.
Silvente stated that she was interrogated for nearly two hours, during which she was accused of allowing her 21-year-old daughter to publish denunciations against the Government and was threatened with a sentence of up to five years in prison.
The accusation is based on Article 393 of the Cuban Penal Code, which punishes “acts against personal and family privacy, one’s own image and voice,” after she revealed the identity of a ‘suboficial’ of the Ministry of the Interior, Yoel Leodan Rabaza Ramos, who went to the home to deliver the summons. Anna Bensi had shared these images as a denunciation of police intimidation.
According to Silvente, the agents called her a “bad mother” and accused Anna Bensi of being “counterrevolutionary,” of “conspiring,” and of receiving orders from the United States. After the interrogation, Silvente was informed that she is under house arrest and cannot receive visitors. She is required to find a lawyer within five days for her criminal case. They also told her that Anna Bensi will be summoned soon.
In a message published on Facebook, the 21-year-old posted a public response addressed to State Security, in which she denounces how this intimidation is meant to pressure her to stop expressing herself freely on social media. “My mom is not a criminal,” she wrote. “If anything happens to my mom or to me, it will be your fault [State Security].” She also stressed that she will continue expressing her ideas freely without fear.
The US Embassy in Cuba spoke out against this harassment on its X profile: “We have not had the pleasure of meeting Anna Bensi or her mother, but why are the regime’s authorities summoning them? Why are they threatening them?”
The case shows the increasingly frequent practice of police pressure against the relatives of activists. A similar intimidation was reported last Tuesday against the father of a member of the digital project Fuera de la Caja [Outside the Box] who was intercepted by State Security agents at his workplace and threatened with having his children imprisoned if they continue their political activity on social media.
Fuera de la Caja reported today on its Facebook profile that Anna Bensi and her mother have had their internet connection cut off, another repressive measure by the State.
This wave of harassment has raised alarm among international organizations. The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) yesterday denounced the increase in repression against independent journalists on the Island, pointing to arrests, police blockades, and physical assaults. In a statement released from Miami, the organization said this represents a persistent pattern of intimidation directed at those who exercise the right to report information.
It is the second series of incidents documented by the organization since the end of January. “The repetition of arrests, police blockades, physical assaults, and threats demonstrates the systematic use of the state apparatus to intimidate and silence journalists,” said the organization’s president, Pierre Manigault.
The president of the IAPA’s Press Freedom Commission, Martha Ramos of Organización Editorial Mexicana (OEM), stated that “the persecution not only reaches those who report the news, but also their relatives and close associates, in a strategy intended to generate fear and encourage self-censorship.”
The 2025 edition of the Chapultepec Index of Freedom of Expression and Press, released yesterday by the IAPA, classifies Cuba as a country with “High Restriction”: “Cuba presents a strengthened dictatorship that has normalized situations adverse to freedom of expression, refining the restrictive environment to the point of nearly preventing citizen expression, which, although it still exists, faces new obstacles due to prior repression within an institutional blockade.”
Translated by Regina Anavy for Translating Cuba.
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