Cuba: Writer José Gabriel Barrenechea Chávez must be released
Image Credit: Selfie of José Gabriel Barrenechea Chávez
‘The Cuban authorities continue to persecute writers, artists, and journalists for expressing their views. The confirmation of José Gabriel Barrenechea Chávez’s six-year prison sentence is another reminder that critical voices continue to be criminalised in Cuba,’ said Ma Thida, Chair of PEN International’s Writers in Prison Committee
4 August 2026 - PEN International condemns the Cuban Supreme People’s Court’s decision to uphold the six-year prison sentence against writer, journalist, and academic José Gabriel Barrenechea Chávez, exhausting his final legal avenue for appeal. The ruling reinforces a longstanding pattern of criminalising peaceful dissent, independent journalism, and critical literary and artistic voices.
On 28 July 2026, six months after a cassation appeal was filed on behalf of imprisoned writer José Gabriel Barrenechea Chávez, Cuba’s Supreme People’s Court (Tribunal Supremo Popular, TSP) issued its final ruling rejecting the appeal.
Poet and academic José Gabriel Barrenechea Chávez is currently serving a six-year prison sentence, the maximum penalty, after he was convicted of ‘public disorder’ on 15 January 2026 in relation to his critical literature and activism. Barrenechea was detained on 8 November 2024 after participating in a peaceful protest in Encrucijada, Villa Clara. Accused of leading the demonstration, video evidence shows that he neither engaged in violence nor incited disorder but was merely peacefully exercising his right to protest.
Barrenechea’s health has significantly deteriorated since his arrest. He suffers from severe malnutrition, infections, sleep disorders, anxiety, and depression. The cruelty of his imprisonment was compounded when authorities denied him the chance to say goodbye to his mother before her death from cancer on 4 May 2025.
Barrenechea has faced systematic harassment since 2019 for his critical journalism, including a travel ban, employment restrictions, and censorship of his books in Cuba, which is illustrative of a broader campaign of repression against independent journalists and government critics. He has been repeatedly summoned by state security and briefly detained in attempts to intimidate him and silence his work.
José Gabriel Barrenechea Chávez, born in 1971, is a writer, academic, journalist and researcher. His published works include Tubular Bells and Other Stories and Cuba, an Island Between Apathy and Revolution, and José Antonio Saco runs out of arguments. Before his arrest, Barrenechea also contributed to independent Cuban and international media outlets such as 14ymedio, Diario de Cuba and Latinoamérica 21, and co-edited the magazine Cuadernos de Pensamiento Plural. PEN International has continually campaigned for Barrenechea’s release, featuring his case on World Press Freedom Day 2025 and in the Writers Under Siege: Defying Silence – PEN International Case List 2026.
PEN International calls once again for Barrenechea’s immediate release. His imprisonment is not an isolated case but part of a consistent pattern of repression directed at writers, artists, and journalists who dare criticise the Cuban authorities. PEN International urges the Cuban government to meet its international human rights commitments and to guarantee a safe and free space for everyone exercising their right to freedom of expression.
Additional information
For more information about PEN International’s work on Cuba, please see PEN International’s report Método Cuba, published with Cubalex and Artists At Risk Connection, which exposes the systematic use of harassment, censorship, imprisonment, and forced exile to silence dissenting voices in the country.
Note to Editors
For more information, please contact Alicia Quiñones, Head of the Americas Region, PEN International: [email protected]
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