Cuba prosecutors seek 10-year sentence for activist Virgilio Mantilla

Cuban prosecutors in Camagüey have requested a 10-year prison sentence for activist Virgilio Mantilla Arango. The charges stem from a video recorded in September 2025, in which Mantilla expressed dissatisfaction with the country’s political, economic, and social conditions. The footage was subsequently shared on Facebook, which prosecutors claim was intended to incite social unrest.

In addition to the propaganda charges, Mantilla faces a one-year sentence for contempt following verbal accusations made against a prison official regarding corruption and the misappropriation of food.

Prosecutors have also requested four years of correctional work without internment for Tomás Roberto Agüero Yanes for propaganda against the constitutional order. Human rights advocates suggest these legal actions represent a pattern of using the penal code to criminalize peaceful dissent and freedom of expression in Cuba.