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The young Cuban Paula Amador Lobón, a student at Columbia University, made public a letter written by the activist Kamil Zayas Pérez, a member of the independent project El4tico, who was detained this Friday in Holguín along with Ernesto Ricardo Medina during a police operation.
"Kamil is not a criminal, and State Security knows it," wrote Paula in her post on Facebook, where she explained that the text had been given to her by the young man himself "anticipating an arrest" and with the instruction to make it public if he did not appear free within 24 hours.
In his statement, dated January 2026, Kamil warned with prophetic calm: “If you are seeing or reading this, it is because you finally found a way to lock me up, to attempt to silence me temporarily.”
The activist explained that his arrest was not due to any common crime, but rather to "the only crime that a dictatorship cannot tolerate: daring to look them in the eye and speak aloud what everyone notices: their glaring shortcomings, their chronic inefficiencies, their systematic injustices, and the oppression that crushes the dignity of an entire people."
Zayas, known for his reflective tone and analytical ability, stated that his work at El4tico has always aimed to promote critical thinking "without hatred and without polarization." "I have only pointed out the incorrect, the humiliating, what degrades the human being. And that, apparently, is unforgivable," he wrote.
In the letter, the young man condemned the Cuban state for, in the face of the deepest crisis in its recent history, “choosing to tighten the screws even more, to suffocate the narrative, and to escalate the level of repression.” He also described the fear of those in power as their main driving force: “They fear taking responsibility for their own mistakes more than dragging an entire people into the abyss out of pride and arrogance.”
Zayas also reflected on the hypocrisy of the official discourse, which exalts rebellion in history books while persecuting those who practice it today: “They silence those of us who do exactly what they teach: to raise our voices against injustice. Those are their heroes, until someone truly imitates them.”
In one of the most moving passages, the young man defined himself without grandeur: “I am nobody special, neither a leader nor essential. I am just another Cuban, a small piece in a vast cause: the desire to live with dignity and to speak the truth without fear.”
The letter concluded with a message of hope and challenge: “Silencing me does not silence the tide. A cell does not extinguish a collective consciousness that has already awakened. Forced silence does not fix anything; it only festers the wound. The Cuban people are no longer satisfied with scraps or stories. They deserve — they demand — something much better.”
The text has gone viral under the hashtag #WeAreAllEl4tico, generating reactions of solidarity both inside and outside of Cuba. Figures like Anna Sofía Benítez have also publicly expressed support for the group, while activists denounce the official silence regarding the detentions.
Amidst blackouts, censorship, and a rising tide of uncertainty and indignation, Kamil Zayas's letter encapsulates the spirit of a generation that defies fear with words. A message that, although written from the anticipation of confinement, already belongs to the collective memory of a country that — as he wrote — "demands something much better."
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