Madrid/Cuban opposition leader Manuel Cuesta Morúa was released this Saturday after having been detained, mistreated and threatened with death by State Security agents.
The Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba (CTDC) – an organization chaired by Cuesta Morúa – had denounced hours before his forced disappearance and that he remained incommunicado. The opponent was arrested at the Zanja police unit, in Central Havana, handcuffed and forcibly taken in a patrol car along with two State Security agents and two police officers.
According to information disseminated by the CTDC this Sunday, Cuesta Morúa was beaten and threatened with death during the patrol trip. The organization also reported that the agents confiscated his wallet and destroyed his identification card in his presence.
Instead of being transferred to a detention center, Cuesta Morúa was taken to an isolated area of the province of Artemisa. According to the complaint, the agents forced him to cross a fence to enter a closed area of vegetation, where he was physically attacked and threatened with death.
There, the agents warned him that they would shoot him in the head “if he continued promoting ‘the cauldron touch’ and encouraging citizens to demonstrate on July 11.”
The agents warned him that they would shoot him in the head “if he continued promoting ‘the cauldron touch’ and encouraging citizens to demonstrate on July 11.”
The allusion refers to a campaign promoted by activists that calls on Cubans to demand the release of political prisoners and to protest against food shortages, blackouts and the lack of drinking water, coinciding with the fifth anniversary of the anti-government demonstrations of July 11, 2021.
Cuesta Morúa was abandoned by the agents on the highway known as Ocho Vías, in Artemisa, without documents, money or means of communication. According to the complaint, he remained there for five to six hours until a person who was passing through the area helped him and took him back to Havana.
In the statement released this Sunday, the organization described what happened as part of a “systematic pattern of actions by the Cuban regime” against those who peacefully exercise their rights and demand greater freedoms. “Any Cuban citizen can be a victim of repression for expressing their opinions or demanding democratic changes,” the text states.
“Any Cuban citizen can be a victim of repression for expressing their opinions or demanding democratic changes”
In this sense, the organization asks the international community, democratic governments, international organizations and human rights organizations to recognize this reality and “join the demand of the Cuban people for the immediate cessation of the human rights violations that the Cuban regime constantly exercises against its own people.”
A philosopher and historian by training, Manuel Cuesta Morúa is one of the best-known figures of the Cuban opposition and has suffered numerous arrests and acts of harassment for their political activism. From January 2026 chairs the CTDC –one of the main platforms for articulating the opposition inside and outside the Island– after taking over from José Daniel Ferrer, who went into exile in Miami in October 2025.
