Denia Fernández Rey, a former member of the Damas de Blanco and opponent of the Cuban regime, traveled this weekend through the streets of Palma Soriano, putting up photographs of her son Jesús Alberto Martínez Fernández on poles, corners, and avenues in the municipality of Santiago de Cuba, demanding justice for his death.
Jesús Alberto, 26 years old, died in the early hours of Friday, June 13 after receiving a stab wound near the Bar Galaxy, in Palma Soriano. His mother described the attack by his assailant in stark terms: "He jumped down from a balcony and landed on him and killed him. He tried to defend himself, but he was practically dead already."
When she arrived at the hospital, the situation was desperate. "There was no electricity, no blood, nothing in the hospitals, no ambulance," denounced Denia. The mother also stated that the police initially refused to hand over her son's body and that she received threats from State Security agents during the funeral process.
Dressed in black and with handwritten images in memory of her son, the mother turned her grief into a public outcry. Her message, collected by the communicator Yosmany Mayeta Labrada on Facebook, was straightforward: «No more tears from a mother. I ask for justice for my son. No more deaths in Cuba».
The Martínez-Fernández family is a prominent opposition group in the eastern region. Denia leads FLAMUR in Santiago de Cuba and coordinates the Women's Network of Cuba in the eastern zone.
Her husband, Alberto Martínez, is the director of the Republican Party of Cuba. Jesús Alberto himself was leader of the Youth Republican Impact Movement, according to opposition organizations.
The mother did not hesitate to point to the regime as responsible: «For me, yes [the regime is behind the murder], because my son had a community and he told everyone that this regime needed to be changed. He didn’t leave Cuba for a change he wanted in Cuba.»
He also linked the death of his son to the systemic crisis of the dictatorship: «The regime exists to suppress, not to provide security to the youth or anyone else, they kill us with impunity and there isn't a single police officer on the street, but when we protest, they immediately send the press after us».
Denia also pointed out that in Palma Soriano, only two places still have electricity and that there, armed young people and drugs are concentrated, directly linking the power outages to the rise in violence.
The funeral, held on the same Friday, was attended by a large crowd: hundreds of residents accompanied the procession in a long caravan of motorcycles in the rain, in tribute to a young man who was a motorcyclist and had his own engine workshop.
The case occurs just days after the femicide of a 23-year-old woman in Palma Soriano on June 9, in the context of a sustained rise in crime in Cuba. The Cuban Observatory for Citizen Audit recorded 2,833 verified crimes in 2025, an increase of 115% compared to 2024, with Santiago de Cuba among the most affected provinces.
Cuban authorities have not issued any official statement regarding the case or the progress of the investigations.
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