Miami, October 1, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the forced exile of Cuban journalist Austin Llerandi, director of the community newsletter Amanecer Habanero, who fled the island on Tuesday and is currently in Brazil.
Llerandi left the island with his pregnant wife after Cuban State Security agents threatened him with prison time if he did not stop distributing the Amanecer Habanero.
“No citizen should be banished from the country of their birth,” said Jose Zamora, CPJ’s regional director for the Americas. “We call upon Cuba to cease this practice of threatening journalists with prison because they seek to practice their profession free from state control.”
LLerandi told CPJ that the threats began in July when he was summoned to an interrogation by State Security agents in Marianao, in south-west Havana, as part of an investigation into “crimes against State security” under Decree 370, which outlaws independent journalism. He was detained for five hours in August where he was given the option of going to prison or leaving the country within two months.
“This is neither a relocation nor a free choice,” stated the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and the Press (ICLEP), a Cuban exile media group which publishes Amanecer Habanero. “This is called banishment, and international law expressly prohibits it,” added ICLEP.
Cuban journalists working outside state media have been persecuted for decades in Cuba. CPJ has documented a surge in the emigration of Cuban journalists in the last five years following mass street protests in July 2021 and the introduction of new repressive laws.
Cuba’s penal code considers it a crime to defy “socialist law” or work as a journalist outside of state-controlled media. These laws violate the Cuban constitution which recognizes freedom of press as well as freedom of thought and expression, while also establishing the people’s “right to the free development of their personality.”
Amanecer Habanero is one of several media outlets belonging to the (ICLEP), which has received funding from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED), a non-profit foundation that manages U.S. government-funded democracy and press freedom programs around the world. ICLEP has been publishing newsletters since 2012.