Jesús Joel Díaz Hernández

Jesús Joel Díaz Hernández is a Cuban journalist who was imprisoned by the Cuban government from 1999–2001. His imprisonment attracted protest from several human rights organizations, including Amnesty International, which named him a prisoner of conscience.

Prior to his arrest, Díaz Hernández was executive director of the Cooperativa Avileña de Periodistas Independientes (CAPI), an independent news agency that sought to challenge the state monopoly on news. Censorship in Cuba is commonplace, with its media under the supervision of the Communist Party's Department of Revolutionary Orientation. and the 2011 Freedom of the Press report of the press NGO Freedom House named it the most censored country in the Americas. As a journalist unaligned with the government, Díaz Hernández reportedly suffered repeated threats and harassment, including an "acto de repudio" ("act of repudiation") in which he was subjected to public criticism for his "counterrevolutionary" views. The latter organization named Díaz Hernández a prisoner of conscience, calling for his immediate release. Díaz Hernández himself went on hunger strike to protest his detention for the first ten days of his imprisonment.