Ángel SANTIESTEBAN PRATS

Award-winning writer Ángel Santiesteban Prats was subjected to harassment by security and other officials, including through restrictions on movement, detention, and surveillance in 2025. On 20 March 2025, Santiesteban Prats, one of the most well-known figures within Freemasonry in Cuba, was expelled from the Grand Lodge of Cuba, which is controlled by individuals close to the government, following internal proceedings. According to Santiesteban Prats and public reports by independent media, the disciplinary process was politically motivated. On 10 September 2025, Santiesteban was briefly detained for three hours in Havana by State Security agents while attempting to leave his home during a nationwide power outage. Officers were also preventing him from moving freely and detained him without providing an official order. 

Santiesteban Prats has been harassed by the Cuban authorities for many years (see Case Lists 2012 (July to December), 2015, 2016, 2018 and 2022). For example, he was previously sentenced to five years in prison on 8 December 2012 for alleged assault and trespassing. Conditionally released on 17 July 2015, he was briefly detained again in 2016). 

Angel Santiesteban Prats, born on 2 August 1966, is an award-winning writer and author of the blog Los Hijos que Nadie Quiso (The Children Whom Nobody Loved). He has been published around the world and has received various literary prizes, including the Alejo Carpentier Award organized by the Cuban Book Institute in 2001 for his book Los hijos que nadie quiso (The Children Nobody Wanted) and the Casa de las Américas Award in 2006 for his book Dichosos los que lloran (Blessed Are Those Who Mourn). Ángel Santiesteban received the 2020 Václav Havel International Prize for Creative Dissent. He is the author of several other books, including Sueño de un día de Verano (Summer Daydream), and Sur: latitud 13 (South: Latitude 13).