Cuba releases teen political prisoner after months in Canaleta prison

Cuban authorities released Jonathan David Muir Burgos, the 16-year-old held in Canaleta prison in Ciego de Ávila, after more than three months behind bars for a sabotage case tied to the March protests in Morón.

Amnesty International places Muir's detention on March 16, 2026, after unrest that followed protests in Morón on March 13. He was charged with sabotage, a crime that can carry a prison term of up to 15 years, and his family said his physical and psychological health deteriorated while he was detained, along with inadequate medical care. Cubalex says he had first been held in the DTI in Ciego de Ávila before being transferred into the prison system.

Cuba sets the age of criminal responsibility at 16, but minors aged 16 to 18 are supposed to have safeguards such as access to a lawyer, parental accompaniment and hearings behind closed doors. Those protections are often weakened in practice by the same police and prosecutors who detain and investigate them, Cubalex says. Police can hold someone for up to 24 hours without a judicial order, a window Cubalex says can be used for interrogation, pressure and incommunicado detention. Cubalex identified four minors detained in connection with the Morón protest.

Blackouts, food scarcity, water shortages and inflation drove the protests that fed the case. Nights of chanting for freedom, banging pots and pans, and outrage over power outages that in several provinces exceeded 20 hours a day marked the protests.

Human Rights Watch says Cuban authorities continue to arbitrarily detain, harass and intimidate critics, and that hundreds of political prisoners remain in the country along with hundreds more people under house arrest or other restrictions. It says the government’s April 2 release of 2,010 prisoners did not include any political prisoners identified by rights groups.