8SEP

Three women face years for a blackout protest

4 min read

13:24UTC

Santiago prosecutors sought up to ten years for three UNPACU women who protested the November 2024 blackouts; after 18 months in pretrial detention, they learn their sentences on 1 July.

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Key takeaway

Cuba's first 2024-protest sentencing on 1 July tests how hard Havana punishes blackout dissent.

Prosecutors at the Municipal Court of Palma Soriano, in Santiago de Cuba province, concluded an oral hearing on Friday 5 June 2026 seeking up to ten years in prison for three women who protested the electricity blackouts of November 2024 ¹. Mileidis Maceo Quinones faces ten years on an "atentado" (assault-on-authority) charge; Edilkis Leon Giraudis faces eight and Oneida Quinones five, both for public disorder. All three belong to the opposition group UNPACU (Patriotic Union of Cuba), and two are former members of the Ladies in White, the Catholic dissident women's movement.

The defendants were arrested on 4 December 2024 and have spent more than 18 months in pretrial detention; sentencing is set for Wednesday 1 July. This is the first 2024-protest case to reach sentencing, and it shows the same judicial apparatus that rejected Otero Alcantara's early-release appeal now working through the earlier blackout unrest. The charges matter for the wider count: "atentado" and public-disorder convictions are precisely the crimes-against-authority categories that Cuba's amnesty decrees exclude, so a sentence here adds names the next pardon wave cannot remove.

The courtroom ties back to the cells. Oneida Quinones is held under house arrest with diabetes, hypertension and chronic asthma, the same medical fragility that turns a custodial term into a health emergency. Sentencing the three as charged would convert an 18-month pretrial limbo into prison terms running to the next decade, for protesting the loss of power that the island is still losing now. The gap between the requested terms and whatever the Court hands down on 1 July is the first measurable test of how hard Havana intends to punish the 2024 protest cohort.

Deep Analysis

In plain English

In Cuba, protesting against electricity blackouts in November 2024 could lead to a ten-year prison sentence, and three women are now finding out exactly that. Milleidis Maceo Quinones, Edilkis Leon Giraudis, and Oneida Quinones are members of UNPACU, a Cuban opposition group. They were arrested in December 2024, more than a month after their protest, and have been held in custody ever since. As of the June 2026 court hearing, they have already spent 18 months in prison without being sentenced. Prosecutors want ten years for Mileidis on a charge called "atentado", which Cuban law uses to describe assault on an authority figure. Human rights monitors say this charge is routinely used against protesters who did not physically comply with police orders during a demonstration. The verdict is due on 1 July.

Deep Analysis

Root Causes

The atentado charge functions as a political-control instrument because it conflates the act of resisting a police officer during a demonstration with the act of physically assaulting a state authority. Under Article 143, the threshold for criminal liability is low: shouting at an officer during a dispersal can constitute the offence.

The charge is therefore available against virtually any demonstrator who did not immediately comply with dispersal orders, and Cuban prosecutors routinely layer it as the lead charge carrying the highest sentence against defendants who are also charged with the lesser public-disorder count.

18-month pretrial detention reflects a structural feature of the Cuban criminal procedure code that sets no binding maximum for cases classified as threats to state security or social order. The Palma Soriano court's processing of the November 2024 cases confirms that the classification has been applied to ordinary blackout protests; once the security-threat category attaches, the procedural time limits that protect ordinary criminal defendants are suspended.

What could happen next?

Precedent
A 1 July conviction and sentence in the range prosecutors have requested would establish the first judicial precedent for the 2024-protest cohort, directly influencing how prosecutors approach the larger group of 2024 defendants still awaiting trial.
Immediate · Assessed
Risk
Oneida Quinones, currently under house arrest with diabetes, hypertension and chronic asthma, faces the same prison-health trajectory as Brieva Sempe if a custodial sentence is imposed and she is returned to incarceration without medical accommodation.
Immediate · Assessed
Consequence
18 months of pretrial detention, already exceeding international fair-trial standards, will be cited by the OCDH in its EU restrictive-measures campaign alongside the ongoing reparations demand (ID:3903).
Short term · Assessed
Meaning
The Santiago case shows Cuba's judicial machinery processing 2024-protest cases at the same time that new protests are beginning in Havana (ID:3900), meaning the deterrent function of the prosecution operates against a population already watching the state's energy promises fail.
Medium term · Reported

Source Landscape

This story draws on neutral-leaning sources

Primary parallel: Cuba's own 2003 Black Spring prosecution provides the clearest domestic precedent for the atentado-plus-public-disorder charge combination. In March 2003, Cuban authorities arrested 75 journalists, librarians, and dissidents over four days; sentences ranged from six to 28 years on charges framed under the Law for the Protection of National Independence and the Cuban Economy.

None of the 75 held US-reachable assets; the speed of the proceedings (all sentenced within weeks) was the political message. The Santiago 2024-protest case differs in pace but not in charge architecture: atentado and public disorder are the same conceptual basket used in 2003 to equate political criticism with criminal threat.

Counter-parallel: Venezuela's prosecution of 2017 protest leaders under similar public-disorder charges offers a different outcome sequence. International pressure, particularly from the Lima Group and the OAS, produced partial commutations for some defendants within 18 months, and several were eventually placed under house arrest pending formal sentence.

Cuba's more complete isolation from regional diplomatic pressure mechanisms, combined with the absence of a functioning independent judiciary, makes the Venezuelan partial-commutation path structurally unavailable to the Santiago defendants.

Consensus view: TRIAL International and the Cuba Study Group both identify the "atentado" (assault on authority) charge as Cuba's primary instrument for converting public protest into serious criminal liability. The charge under Article 143 of the Cuban Penal Code carries a base range of three to eight years; when prosecution adds aggravating circumstances, which is standard practice in cases involving UNPACU members, the ceiling rises to ten years or more.

The 18-month pretrial detention is itself a punitive instrument: international fair-trial standards set presumptive maxima of six to twelve months, and the Santiago women have served the equivalent of a two-to-three-year sentence before any verdict has been issued.

Counter-view: Cuban state legal officials characterise the charges as ordinary criminal law applied to conduct that constituted a genuine threat to public order during a period of civil unrest.

The official framing holds that the November 2024 blackout protests involved property damage and resistance to law enforcement, and that the sentences sought are proportionate to the specific conduct at issue rather than politically motivated. Independent observers have no access to the trial record to verify or rebut the specific conduct allegations.

Key tension: Whether the 1 July sentencing in Santiago, as the first 2024-protest case to reach sentence proceedings, functions as a template that the prosecution service will apply systematically to the larger 2024-protest cohort still in pretrial detention, or whether the case is treated as an outlier given the defendants' UNPACU membership.

Sources:CiberCuba

Mentions:UNPACU →Ladies in White →Havana →Venezuela →Cuba →Palma Soriano →Santiago de Cuba →

First Reported In

Update #7 · Cuba's president lands on the OFAC blacklist

CiberCuba· 12 Jun 2026

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Causes and effects

Caused by

Court denies Otero Alcántara early release

The judicial machinery processing 2024 protest cases is the same system that rejected Otero Alcantara's early-release appeal; the Santiago trial is the first 2024-protest case to reach sentencing proceedings.

Occurred 25 Apr 2026

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Ten years sought for a blackout protest

The Palma Soriano trial advances the prosecution the Santiago fiscalia sought on 5 June.

Occurred 1 Jul 2026

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This Event

Three women face years for a blackout protest

This is the first 2024-protest case to reach sentencing, showing the judicial machinery grinding through the earlier blackout unrest even as new outages build toward fresh protests.

Led to

Cuban court jails two UNPACU protest women

June prosecutors' sentencing request for the three UNPACU women preceded the 19 July verdict.

Occurred 19 Jul 2026

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Different Perspectives

China

Foreign ministry spokesperson Guo Jiakun called China-Cuba cooperation open, transparent and legitimate on 11 August, after the 6 August designations reached Cuban military attachés posted to China and Russia. The statement named no new assistance.

Russia

The Russian embassy in Havana said on 31 August that expanding BRICS full membership is not on the agenda, declining the upgrade Cuba had sought before the New Delhi summit. Moscow remains Cuba's most reliable outside supplier but stopped short of the diplomatic step Havana wanted.

Dominican Republic

The Dominican Republic ordered nine Cuban diplomats and their families to leave on 13 August without stating a reason, a rupture Havana has not been given an explanation for. Neither government has since clarified what prompted the expulsion.

Observatorio Cubano de Derechos Humanos

OCDH's Madrid-based survey found 94 per cent of Cubans in extreme poverty and 84 per cent distrusting Havana's own reform measures, fieldwork closed three weeks before Decree 325. The group monitors from exile because independent rights monitoring cannot operate legally on the island, and Lowdown could not reach a comparable on-island voice.

Cuban government (Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla)

Rodríguez answered the 3 September designations on Cubadebate the same day without naming any of the five sanctioned entities, calling the wave collective punishment. Havana has used the same anti-blockade framing for each prior wave rather than contesting individual designations.

US Treasury (OFAC) and State Department

OFAC designated Banco Exterior de Cuba and four traders on 3 September; its SDN entry links the individual named alongside them only to Alejandro Castro Espín. The State Department's own announcement, not OFAC's listing, called that individual "a grandson of Raul Castro" and the designated entities exploiters of Cuba's resources "for the benefit of the regime."