Yunia Figueredo reports threats against her daughter’s surgery

Independent journalist Yunia Figueredo said State Security agents threatened to prevent her young daughter’s surgery if she continued practicing independent journalism. According to Figueredo’s account to the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and the Press (ICLEP), an officer identified as Major Hilda told her the operation would never happen if she persisted in what the officer called counterrevolution.

Figueredo said the threat occurred during an interrogation at Villa Marista, the State Security headquarters in Havana. She and her husband, writer and journalist Frank Correa, had been taken there after being detained in Jaimanitas. The journalist also said she was questioned about a file opened against her over her alleged participation in protests against power outages in the Havana neighborhood.

Figueredo said she remained for about five and a half hours without water or bathroom access while not knowing what was happening to Correa. He said he spent more than two hours in a roofless cell known as a “solera.” The couple also reported pressure to abandon independent journalism and leave Cuba, along with threats of travel restrictions.

Both were released at about 2:30 p.m. but reached home at 5 because of public-transportation difficulties. During that time, their daughters remained home alone without electricity or telephone service. ICLEP’s Cuban Observatory for Freedom of Expression documented the case under arbitrary detention and attacks, threats or psychological aggression.

On September 9, ICLEP requested precautionary measures from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights to protect Figueredo, Correa and their two daughters. The petition seeks to protect their integrity and end detentions, threats, movement restrictions and reprisals connected to independent journalism. Figueredo said they would remain in Cuba and continue their work: “We will neither surrender nor leave.”