State Security detains Lara Crofs in Matanzas: “You are the ones who have to leave Cuba”

The Cuban activist and art historian, Yamilka Lafita, (known in networks as Lara Crofs) was arrested this Tuesday in Matanzas by agents of the State Security of the Cuban regime, who arbitrarily detained her and threatened her to leave the country.

“The police stopped me again. In less than 10 days it has been five times. Always traffic police, wheelies and checkpoints. Always the same modus operandi. Turns out it's not me, they think my ID has to say Lara Crofs. “These people really have problems,” the activist wrote in her social networks while she was detained.

Lafita, who had traveled to Matanzas to deliver a donation of medical supplies, spent up to six hours inside a vehicle in a parking lot in that province, illegally detained by Cuban repressors.

“Now they have removed all my documents and are calling each other. I've been here for more than 1 hour, two sides arrived with the SE. I won't get out of the car without a properly written order and I won't let the trunk be searched either. If not with a search warrant. I also do not sign fines, since I did not commit any infraction. I bring donated medications and supplies, which I will not allow myself to be taken away under any circumstances,” he explained.

The activist, one of the key people in the campaign solidarity from Cuban civil society for transfer the girl Amanda Lemus Ortiz and her parents to Spain -with the aim of performing a liver transplant-, is in the crosshairs of State Security.

The high impact of your initiative and the exposure of the collapse of the regime's public health services, have provoked the animosity of the regime's repressors, who consider this humanitarian work as a threat against the image of "medical power" projected by a dictatorship.

The regime, which uses its supposed prestige in this area to sell medical services to other countries - using Cuban doctors as slave labor, according to complaints from international organizations - has considered Lafita to be a nuisance. However, it seems that he does not know how to stop his activism, which goes back years and connects with San Isidro Movement (MSI) and the 27N, among other actions carried out together with activists such as Katherine Bisquet, Camila Lobón, Tania Bruguera O Carolina Barrero.

“I am not leaving Cuba, the ones who have to leave are you. “We continue #alltogether,” Lafita declared in her after his release.

Her arbitrary detention was immediately denounced by non-governmental organizations and other activists, such as the teacher from Matanzas. Alina Bárbara López Hernández, who toured different detention centers in the province in search of Lafita.

After asking at several police stations, the intellectual who was retaliated against and also persecuted by State Security warned in that “I would report this situation immediately, and that I would also appear tomorrow with a Habeas Corpus at the Provincial Court of Matanzas.”

“Professor, I was inside a patrol car parking lot in Naranjal the entire time. Inside the car more than 6 hours. I know that you passed by there because they mentioned it in front of me. Today I'm a little tired, tomorrow I'll tell everything. Thank you very much for your support. Take good care of yourself, teacher. The first person they asked me about was you. They fear him,” Lafita commented in López Hernández's publication.

Finally, this Wednesday, the activist explained in a post on Facebook the reason for his trip to Matanzas to deliver medicines and medical supplies obtained thanks to solidarity donations from Cuban civil society.

“She is Yeni and she is 29 years old, her wheelchair was in such a sorry state that her mother could barely take her to medical appointments. We sent him this wheelchair, to provide a little more comfort in his life so he can move around his little house,” he explained, sharing a photo with the family he visited in Matanzas.

The activist also took the opportunity to thank the concern and expressions of solidarity received during her arbitrary detention, “especially to the friends of the massacres, wonderful and very worthy people who came out to look for me wherever they could think of, and to teacher Alina Bárbara López Hernández for that civility that he keeps intact.”