Blogger and Activist Angel Santiesteban Released from Prison

Havana/The writer and journalist Angel Santiesteban Prats was released from prison on Friday night. Speaking to 14ymedio, Santiesteban said he wanted the quick release of other activists and that a new stage “of struggle” was now starting.

“Just a few minutes ago Major Adonis and First Lieutenant Guillarte said “Angel Santiesteban, congratulations, you have just been released’,” explained the writer. “Then I was given my personal belongings and left.” Asked by this newspaper about his next steps, he answered: “Now, to fight, and other releases have to happen, such as that of El Sexto (Danilo Maldonado).”

In December of 2012, after a process that has been labeled by many as arbitrary and precipitous, Santiesteban was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for “violation of domicile and injuries.” Since 2008, he has published in his activist blog, The Children Nobody Wanted, in support of human rights on the island.

From the prison where he began his sentence, the Lawton Settlement Prison, in Havana, he passed from one prison to another, accused of “attempted escape.” For almost a year, he was imprisoned in the Border Patrol Unit, west of Havana, a military base where he experienced a more severe prison regimen.

Angel Santiesteban has won important literary awards, including the Casa de las Américas Prize in 2006. His book The Summer God Slept received the Franz Kafka Novels From The Drawer Prize in 2013.

Reporters Without Borders had called on the Cuban authorities to withdraw all charges against Angel Santiesteban Prats and release him immediately.