Independent journalist Yoani Sanchez, an award-winning reporter in Cuba, announced Thursday that she has been released from an "arbitrary detention" of a few hours in Havana, but at least two other Cuban women remained in detention.
"I just got home. Thank you all for your solidarity and for spreading the word about the arbitrary detention I suffered this morning. That support is what managed to slide back the bolts and open the bars," the 51-year-old wrote on X.
Several human rights groups and press freedom organizations had denounced her detention after 14ymedio, the digital newspaper she founded, reported she "was kidnapped by the political police" as she was leaving her home in Havana's Nuevo Vedado neighborhood "to go shopping."
Sanchez said she will share more details Friday about "the pain and the total lack of protection that those who have no public visibility" are forced to live with behind bars.
"I have a duty to make their stories public," she added.
At least two other prominent Cuban women were also arrested Thursday, including Ladies in White movement leader Berta Soler and member Maria Cristina Labrada.
They were seized "in the middle of the street" as they were leaving the opposition movement's headquarters, Soler's husband Angel Moya confirmed to AFP.
"We don't know where they were taken," he added.
The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, a Spain-based NGO, demanded "immediate information" on the whereabouts of Soler and Labrada in an X post Thursday.
The Ladies in White movement was recognized by the European Parliament in 2005 with the Sakharov Prize for human rights, and 63-year-old Soler has frequently faced detentions and house arrests for her activism.
The movement emerged in 2003 following the imprisonment of 75 Cuban dissidents in a wave of repression that became known as the Black Spring. Its members dress in white as a symbol of their peaceful protest.
Sanchez had notified her colleagues of her detention via a brief text message.
In 2008, Sanchez won the Ortega y Gasset Prize, one of the most prestigious awards in Spanish-language journalism.
That same year, Time Magazine listed her as one of the 100 most influential people in the world.
Like other independent journalists in Cuba, she has reported enduring frequent police harassment.
On X, Amnesty International criticized Sanchez's arrest and the "imprisonment" of journalist Henry Constantin, who runs small independent outlet La Hora de Cuba and has been detained since mid-September on accusations of "disobedience."
"We demand that Cuban authorities immediately and unconditionally release all those they are holding solely for exercising their freedom of expression and guarantee the right to report without reprisals," Amnesty said.
A 2023 law authorizes only state-run media outlets in Cuba.
Independent online media outlets have cropped up in the past decade, however, although island residents can only access them through VPNs.
According to 14ymedio, authorities have detained several contributors to opposition media outlets in recent weeks, later releasing them with fines or warnings.