Cuban activist Alexander Verdecia Rodríguez, a member of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), He was convicted recently by a court in Granma to seven years of deprivation of liberty for the alleged crimes of “propaganda against the constitutional order” and “incitement to commit crimes”.
However, the real reasons for this conviction are decidedly political: his activism in his hometown of Río Cauto and his posts critical of the regime on social media.
The trial against the opposition leader was held the previous September and, almost three months later, he was notified of his sentence.
Verdecia Rodríguez remains incarcerated in the Las Mangas Provincial Prison, in the province of Granma., after his arrest on February 6.
Initially, the prosecution requested a ten-year sentence. According to the provisional conclusions of the Prosecutor's Office, In January 2024, he allegedly used his Facebook profile to publish content that —according to the authorities— sought to “disturb public peace”, generate “disrespect for social order and the socialist state”, and “call for rebellion against the system and its leaders”.
This case reflects recurring patterns of criminalizing the exercise of fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression, association, and political participation. The application of the crime of propaganda against the constitutional order, formulated broadly and ambiguously, allows the State to punish peaceful expressions of dissent and nonviolent civic activism.
The conviction of activist Alexander Verdecia Rodríguez It is not isolated.
This month also saw the release of the provisional conclusions presented by the Prosecutor's Office before the Court for Crimes against State Security in Santiago de Cuba, in a Criminal proceedings against eight citizens from the province of Las Tunas, accused of the crime of propaganda against the constitutional orderl, provided for in article 124 of the Penal Code.
The prosecution is seeking prison sentences of between six and nine years, in addition to other penalties such as the confiscation of mobile phones. All the accused have been held in pretrial detention at the Las Tunas Provincial Prison since March and April 2024.
The document, dated July 21, 2025 and signed by prosecutor Iany Fernández Jomarrón, maintains that the accused —Javier Reyes Peña (9 years), Maikel Hill Ramírez (6 years), Guillermo Carralero López (8 years), Carlos Manuel Santiesteban Saavedra (7 years), Carlos Alberto McDonald Ennis (7 years), Enrique González Infante (7 years), Pedro Carlos Camacho Ochoa (7 years) and Adisbel Mendoza Barroso (8 years)— would have been linked, through social networks, to the “Cuba Primero” movement.
Verdecia Rodríguez, for his part, has previously suffered political imprisonment. In 2015, he was sentenced to three months of house arrest, then to six months for refusing to pay a fine of 2,000 pesos, and in 2016 he was imprisoned for a year for alleged contempt of authority.
Subsequently, in 2018, he was sentenced to another 2 months of house arrest.
In 2014 he was expelled from the Valle del Cauto Rice Company for belonging to the religious movement Pastors for Change.