Miami, November 5, 2026—The Committee to Protect Journalists strongly condemns the arrest of Cuban independent journalist Yoani Sánchez, the founder and director of independent news outlet 14ymedio, who was detained by State Security agents in Havana on Thursday morning shortly after she left her home to go shopping, her family posted on social media.
Sánchez alerted 14ymedio staff of her detention with a text message after she was intercepted on the street by agents. Her whereabouts are unknown.
“Cuban authorities should immediately release Yoani Sánchez and disclose her whereabouts,” said José Zamora, CPJ’s regional director for the Américas. “Her detention is part of a broader crackdown on independent journalists. Authorities must end these arrests and allow journalists to report without fear of retaliation.”
Sánchez’s detention follows the arrest of several journalists in Cuba this week who were released after a few hours, including Adelth Bonne Gamboa, a contributor of the Miami-based exile news outlet CubaNet, and Camila Acosta, a freelancer for the Spanish newspaper ABC.
Bonne was issued a 3,000 pesos (US$125) fine in connection with his social media posts about Cuba’s socio-economic crisis and had several pieces of his work equipment confiscated, according to 14ymedio.
Acosta said her phone was tampered with while she was in detention and rendered inoperable. She said she was issued a warning regarding her filming of a public official who recently prevented her from leaving her home and was told this was a crime against personal privacy. A dissident content creator, Anna Sofía Benítez (Anna Bensi) and her mother, Caridad Silvente, were sentenced recently to two years of restricted liberty on a similar charge.
Sánchez’s 14ymedio reported that several of its reporters have been subjected to this type of short-term detention since the outlet’s founding in May 2014. Sanchez’s husband, Reinaldo Escobar, has been detained on numerous occasions, usually coinciding with significant events, such as Barack Obama’s visit in 2016 or Pope Francis’s visit to the island in 2015. His daughter, Luz Escobar, was also repeatedly placed under house arrest, before she left for Spain in 2022.