500,000 pesos bail demanded for detention of 16-year-old in Guanabacoa
An opposition activist mother reports that Cuban authorities are holding her 16-year-old son without charges and demanding half a million pesos to release him.
Minor held in Guanabacoa police station without charges explained
Yasmily Machado Duvergel, a Cuban opposition activist, reported to cibercuba.com that authorities are demanding a bail of 500,000 Cuban pesos to release her 16-year-old son, detained since last Saturday at police station number 14 in Guanabacoa, Havana.
The adolescent, Michel Joel Valdés Machado, was intercepted on 10 October whilst heading to a nearby refreshment stand near his home. To date, no officer or investigator from the unit has informed the mother what crime he is accused of, nor has she been allowed to see him.
The report was circulated by the human rights organisation Prisoners Defenders through its account on X.
"For being an opposition activist"
Machado Duvergel, a delegate of the Movement for Democracy and the Movement of Opposition Members for a New Republic (MONR), states that the detention is linked to her political activism and that reprisals are now extending to her family.
"I am being repressed at police station fourteen in Guanabacoa, as they are denying me the right to know about my son, to leave his belongings for him, to know why they have him locked up down there at the station. For being an opposition activist," she said in a video.
Regarding the bail demanded, the mother questioned its economic viability: "The police tell me that I have to pay bail of half a million pesos, when here in this country where we are not free and we do not have freedom of expression, there is no ordinary Cuban who earns that salary."
The woman also reported the conditions of her son's detention, with shortages of water and electricity, and food that she described as "a stew".
Legal framework without limits for bail
The use of bail of this amount in cases against activists and protesters has been questioned by independent organisations. In an analysis published in July, the organisation Cubalex warned that article 364 of the Cuban Code of Criminal Procedure does not set minimum or maximum limits for determining such amounts, which gives authorities a broad margin of discretion.
According to Cubalex, between 2024 and 2026 bail of between 100,000 and 500,000 pesos began to be imposed systematically, figures that many families cannot afford.
More than 1,300 political prisoners registered
The most recent report from Prisoners Defenders counted 1,372 political prisoners in Cuba as of 1 October 2026, among them 40 people detained whilst under the age of majority or subjected to active criminal proceedings since that stage.
In Michel Joel's case, no public announcement has been made of a formal accusation. The legal status of the adolescent and the conditions of his detention have not been able to be verified independently.
His mother continues to demand answers at the police station and insists that authorities must allow her to learn of her son's status and explain the reasons for his custody.
"I demand freedom for my son Michel Joel Valdés Machado. Down with the dictatorship. Freedom for political prisoners. Freedom for the Cuban people and no more repression," she concluded.
Source: Google News CU — La Habana