Reinaldo Escobar reports Yoani Sánchez’s detention by State Security in Havana

Update (November 5, 2026): Yoani Sánchez was released on Thursday after about nine hours in detention. “I just got home, thank you all for the solidarity and for spreading word of the arbitrary detention,” she wrote in Spanish on X. Her husband, Reinaldo Escobar, told Martí Noticias that she told him authorities accuse her of an alleged crime of “attack on the constitutional order.” Sánchez said she will give more details on Friday.

Cuban journalist Reinaldo Escobar reported on Thursday, November 5, that his wife, Yoani Sánchez, director of the digital newspaper 14ymedio, was detained by State Security agents in Havana. “Yoani Sánchez has been detained by State Security today in Havana,” he wrote in Spanish on his Facebook profile, in a message shared by colleagues and media outlets.

The report came from Madrid. With Yoani Sánchez detained in Havana, Escobar is in Spain, where, as Cubanos por el Mundo reported on October 30, he reunited with his daughter, Luz Escobar, after four years of exile.

How the detention happened

According to Martí Noticias, Sánchez left her home in Nuevo Vedado, in the Plaza de la Revolución municipality, at about 9:30 a.m., after telling colleagues she was going to the market and would be back soon.

Journalist Mario Pentón said on social media that the detention took place on Estancia Street, next to the parking lot of the Ministry of Agriculture. According to a source who witnessed the events and whom Pentón cited, agents forced her into a patrol car while she shouted that she was being kidnapped.

Sánchez managed to alert the 14ymedio newsroom in Madrid with a brief Telegram message: “The police kidnapped me,” as reported by the Spanish digital outlet The Objective.

Her whereabouts were not known during the hours she was detained. As of the latest reports reviewed, Cuban authorities had not commented on the case.

Before her release, José Zamora, regional director for the Americas at the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), called for her release and for her whereabouts to be disclosed, and urged an end to these arrests of journalists.

Three journalists detained in four days

Sánchez’s detention follows two others reported this same week. The Cuban Observatory for Freedom of the Press and Expression (OCLE) denounced, according to Martí Noticias, a pattern of harassment against independent communicators: in its view, detentions, threats of criminal proceedings and the confiscation of equipment seek to curb the flow of information about the country.

On Monday, November 2, reporter Adelth Bonne Gamboa was stopped on the street, taken to a police station, interrogated, fined and threatened with prison, and his equipment was confiscated, OCLE specialist Arailaisy Rosabal told Martí Noticias.

On Tuesday, November 3, journalist Camila Acosta was held for several hours. After her release, she said authorities disabled her phone and gave her a formal warning for recording an agent who prevented her from leaving her home on October 28. In July, Acosta had already reported a State Security operation outside her home.

Since mid-September, journalist Henry Constantín, director of La Hora de Cuba, has also been held in pretrial detention at the Kilo 7 prison in Camagüey, accused of disobedience.

A year of pressure on Yoani Sánchez

This is not the first incident of 2026. On January 28, State Security agents stopped her on the street to keep her from attending a reception hosted by the U.S. chief of mission in Cuba, Mike Hammer, and returned her home with an order not to leave until the next day.

On March 15, a man in plain clothes with his face covered blocked her from leaving her building without identifying himself or showing any order, as she documented on video. The Americas program of the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) expressed concern at the time and called on authorities to end those intimidation tactics.

In July, Sánchez was among those absent from the Fourth of July reception, which authorities prevented dozens of opposition figures, journalists and activists from attending. “Where is Yoani Sánchez?” Hammer asked at the event, where he warned the regime that “time is running out”.

Sánchez, born in Havana in 1975, rose to prominence in 2007 with the blog Generación Y, which earned her the Ortega y Gasset Prize in 2008 and a place on Time magazine’s list of the 100 most influential people that same year. In May 2014 she founded 14ymedio with Escobar, considered the first independent digital newspaper produced from inside the island. For nearly two decades, her work has documented repression, the economic crisis and daily life in Cuba.

Yoani Sánchez detained: what is known so far

• Yoani Sánchez was detained on the morning of Thursday, November 5, after leaving her home in Nuevo Vedado, Havana.
• Her husband, Reinaldo Escobar, reported the detention on Facebook from Madrid.
• A source cited by Mario Pentón says she was forced into a patrol car on Estancia Street.
• She was released after about nine hours. According to Escobar, she is accused of an “attack on the constitutional order”; there is no official confirmation.
• It is the third detention of an independent journalist reported this week, following those of Adelth Bonne Gamboa and Camila Acosta.

Cubanos por el Mundo will update this story as new details are confirmed. Organizations that document repression in Cuba, such as the OCDH, which recorded at least 344 violent actions in September alone, usually include these cases in their monthly reports.