Journalists and activists report police blockades at their Havana homes

Yoani Sánchez and Camila Acosta said Friday that officers were preventing them from leaving their homes in Havana, during a day when other activists also reported police surveillance. Sánchez wrote on X that the deployment was on the ground floor of her building. Acosta blamed State Security and said the restriction also affected her husband, who was unable to leave the home with her during the operation.

The U.S. diplomatic mission had organized an evening event focused on design and fashion, with guests from civil society. The gathering was scheduled for 7 p.m. at a residence in Miramar as part of the American Nights series. Journalist Yunia Figueredo said in a video that an officer cited the event as the reason she was barred from leaving and dismissed her objections, insisting that his order prevailed.

From Mexico, journalist José Raúl Gallego reported on Facebook that Marthadela Tamayo and Osvaldo Navarro Veloz had been ordered to remain at home. He also identified police vehicle number 444 outside Adelth Bonne Gamboa's home since the morning. Wilber Aguilar Bravo said a patrol car had been stationed outside his residence, another of the cases reported Friday in the Cuban capital.

The surveillance also prevented a family farewell, according to activist Yamilka Lafita, known as Lara Crofs. In a video shared on social media, she said she had been unable to attend her aunt's funeral because the operation blocked her from leaving. Lafita expressed outrage and said her relative had died in a hospital on Thursday night, before the day of restrictions began.

Creator Anna Sofía Benítez Silvente, known as Anna Bensi, and her mother, Cary Silvente, also reported restrictions. Both said patrol cars and plainclothes personnel had controlled all four entrances to their Havana building since early morning. Just over a month earlier, the Municipal People's Court in East Havana had sentenced each of them to two years of restricted freedom for sharing a recording of an officer delivering a summons to their home.

In another case, relatives of Karel Daniel Hernández Bosques, a member of the Fuera de la Caja Cuba project, reported online that they had not known his whereabouts for at least five hours. As context for the restrictions, the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights counted 387 actions in October that it characterized as repressive, including 145 police blockades. The figures come from the organization's report for the previous month.