Juanita 🌹

🚨 I was almost taken hostage in Cuba... I went to Cuba to document the humanitarian crisis and show life under 60+ years of communism and now amid the US blockade. Once I landed, they seized all my cameras except my iPhone and had intelligence agents following me all day until my security noticed their spies tailing us to the hotel where they waited all night for us to come down. Under communism there is no free speech, and those who show the reality or speak up are imprisoned. Me going without a planned Cuban government guide nearly got me and my security taken hostage or imprisoned. The situation in Cuba is much worse than anyone knows.

Yoani Sánchez, independent Cuban journalist, has faced systematic repression from the Cuban regime for her critical work and her 14ymedio media outlet: multiple arbitrary detentions (2009, 2010, 2012, January 2026 She was the victim of a 2009 physical assault attempting forced undressing, constant intimidation, harassment, threatening calls, surveillance, state-sponsored defamation campaigns, years-long travel bans, illegal phone tapping, and ongoing blocking of her blog and media outlet. She, she and millions of Cubans have a message for the “Nuestra América” convoy delegates: break free from your luxury-hotel script and official welcomes, step out, and see the real Cuba—the one they hide. Visit the tear-soaked homes of political prisoners’ families to hear firsthand about repression, prison torture, forced starvation behind bars, and families torn apart. Walk into classrooms where relentless indoctrination and personality cults crush children’s spirits, teaching them to lie, wear masks, and stay silent to survive. Enter Havana neighborhoods suffering weeks without water—not from blackouts, but because crumbling pipes were ignored while billions built tourist hotels. See violent, hopeless barrios where police brutality and crime crush vulnerable lives with no escape. Watch elderly revolutionaries who gave everything to the system now begging outside banks. Pass the dollar-only MLC stores where basics are locked behind foreign currency, condemning peso earners to misery.