News · Rights
Cubalex documents 15 forced exiles in 2026 and twice as much pressure on dissidents to leave
The organization counts 19 people pressured into exile so far in 2026, against nine in 2025, and 15 exiles already carried out, according to the records it shared with elTOQUE; it warns that the figures are an undercount.
Pressure on activists and political prisoners to leave the country has doubled in a little under a year, according to Cubalex records shared with elTOQUE: 19 people pressured so far in 2026 against nine in 2025. The exiles the government managed to carry out went from 12 last year to 15 documented through October 2026, among political prisoners, activists and relatives. The organization notes that its data are an undercount and that the real figure could be higher.
The case that illustrates the report is that of Loreto Hernández García and Donaida Pérez Paseiro, a married couple of Yoruba priests imprisoned for protesting on July 11, 2021 in Placetas, Villa Clara, with sentences of seven and eight years. According to Loreto's brother, the former political prisoner Jorge Luis García Pérez, "Antúnez," the deterioration of both their health led them to accept banishment; the latest offer reached them on October 13.
Martí Noticias published an audio testimony by Donaida in which she said State Security officers identified as "Arturo" and "Christopher" were pressuring her husband to speed up "the papers" from abroad that would allow the two of them to leave, and that they wanted them not to resume their activism. "They know that the day we get out of prison we are going to continue our struggle for the freedom of Cuba," the political prisoner said, in remarks translated by Yamacoa.
Antúnez told elTOQUE that "the papers" are the visa, humanitarian or of another kind, that some country has to grant: if they obtain it, the authorities would agree to release them immediately in exchange for leaving Cuba. For now there is no release date and no official confirmation.
Both suffer from ischemic heart disease, high blood pressure and diabetes with polyneuropathy, according to the same relative, who also denounces long stays in punishment cells and beatings. Amnesty International considers them prisoners of conscience. Donaida was released in January 2025, warned in an interrogation to stop speaking out and detained again on June 11, 2026; she is serving her sentence in the Guamajal women's prison, where Loreto is held in the men's section.
Sources: elTOQUE · Serie Yamacoa: Presos políticos en Cuba (Prisoners Defenders)
Data updated: 2026-10-23T16:15:00.000Z