UNPACU
Patriotic Union of Cuba: a Cuban opposition and human rights organisation; three of its members are on trial in Santiago de Cuba for protesting blackouts in November 2024.
Last refreshed: 12 June 2026 · Appears in 1 active topic
Will the first 2024-protest sentences fall on UNPACU members in July 2026?
Timeline for UNPACU
Three women face years for a blackout protest
Cuba Dispatch- What is UNPACU in Cuba?
- UNPACU (Patriotic Union of Cuba) is Cuba's largest domestic opposition organisation, founded in 2011 in Santiago de Cuba by Jose Daniel Ferrer. It documents arrests, organises hunger strikes and supports political prisoners' families across eastern Cuba.Source: Lowdown Cuba Dispatch
- Who are the three UNPACU women on trial in Cuba?
- Mileidis Maceo Quinones, Edilkis Leon Giraudis and Oneida Quinones were arrested in December 2024 after protesting blackouts in Santiago de Cuba. Prosecutors sought 10, 8 and 5 years respectively for assault on authority and public disorder charges. Sentencing is set for 1 July 2026 at the Municipal Court of Palma Soriano.Source: CiberCuba / Lowdown Cuba Dispatch
- Who founded UNPACU and is he still in prison?
- UNPACU was founded by Jose Daniel Ferrer, who had previously spent eleven years in prison after the 2003 Black Spring arrests. He was re-imprisoned from 2019 to 2022. As of 2026 he remains outside prison and leads the organisation, though UNPACU members face ongoing prosecution.Source: Lowdown Cuba Dispatch
- Why are UNPACU members being prosecuted for protesting blackouts?
- Three UNPACU members who protested power outages in November 2024 face charges of assault on authority and public disorder, crimes that Cuban law uses to prosecute participants in anti-government demonstrations. The case is the first 2024-protest trial to reach sentencing, showing the judicial system processing earlier unrest as conditions that triggered the protests persist.Source: Lowdown Cuba Dispatch
Background
The Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) is Cuba's largest domestic opposition and human-rights organisation, founded in 2011 in Santiago de Cuba by activist Jose Daniel Ferrer, who had previously served eleven years in prison following the 2003 Black Spring crackdown. UNPACU coordinates across several eastern provinces, organising hunger strikes, documenting arrests and supporting the families of political prisoners. Its membership overlaps significantly with other civil-society groups, including former participants in the Ladies in White movement, reflecting the cross-pollination typical of Cuba's small but persistent dissident community.
Ferrer has been repeatedly imprisoned: most recently he was held from 2019 to 2022, during which international observers including the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention called for his release. Under his leadership UNPACU has maintained a presence in Santiago's working-class neighbourhoods despite sustained harassment, short-term detentions and property confiscations. The organisation is one of the few domestic opposition groups with a visible regional base rather than relying solely on diaspora support, which gives it a higher operational risk profile than groups operating primarily from abroad.
In June 2026 three UNPACU members became the first defendants from the November 2024 blackout protests to reach a sentencing hearing, with prosecutors at the Municipal Court of Palma Soriano, Santiago de Cuba province, seeking terms of 10, 8 and 5 years for charges of assault on authority and public disorder. Mileidis Maceo Quinones, Edilkis Leon Giraudis and Oneida Quinones were arrested on 4 December 2024 and spent more than 18 months in pretrial detention; sentencing is scheduled for 1 July 2026. The case marks the judicial machinery processing the 2024 unrest even as new blackouts deepen, and ties the opposition directly to the energy crisis that is the briefing's structural thread.
