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The intellectual and activist Alina Bárbara López Hernández was detained on Thursday in the Parque de la Libertad in Matanzas while attempting to carry out her monthly peaceful civic protest, according to an alert posted on her Facebook account, presumably by her daughter, who regularly updates that page when the scholar is detained and cut off from communication.
The message posted on the social media was brief and urgent: "ALINA HAS JUST BEEN ARRESTED in the Park of Liberty while attempting to exercise her right to peaceful protest. We assume they are taking her to the Playa PNR station. Please share this outrage. Freedom."
The detention carries a particular symbolic weight: this Thursday marks exactly two years since Alina Bárbara and the sociologist Jenny Pantoja Torres were arrested and beaten by officers of the National Revolutionary Police on the Vía Blanca road on June 18, 2024, while they were heading to Havana to protest.
In her post on Wednesday, Alina Bárbara herself announced her intention to go to the park between 11 AM and 12 PM with a sign saying "Amnesty for political prisoners," and she recalled that episode in her own words: "Tomorrow, June 18, marks two years since Jenny Pantoja and I were arbitrarily detained and brutally beaten by police officers at the edge of a stretch of the Vía Blanca road."
After that beating in 2024, both activists were paradoxically accused of the crime of "assault" — supposedly against the officer who attacked them.
The prosecutor Ana Lilian Caballero Arango is requesting four years in prison for Alina Bárbara and three years for Jenny.
The trial, scheduled for January 30, 2026, before the Municipal People's Court of Matanzas, has been indefinitely suspended by Judge Ysenia Rodríguez Vázquez without setting a new date.
Despite being under house arrest for the past two years, Alina Bárbara has not stopped her monthly protests.
The repressive pattern has been recurrent in 2026: on February 18, she was held for 12 hours along with activist Leonardo Romero Negrín, and on April 18, she was arrested and detained for nearly ten hours at the Police Unit.
The Academic Freedom Observatory also issued an alert this Thursday regarding arbitrary detention, addressed to organizations such as UNESCO, the European Union in Cuba, Scholars at Risk, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and Amnesty International.
In its statement, it noted: "Once again, the Government of Cuba chooses to distance itself from any notion of democracy and shows its illegitimate nature against the citizens' right to dissent."
Doctor of Philosophical Sciences, corresponding member of the Academy of History of Cuba, and university professor in Matanzas, Alina Bárbara was expelled from the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba for her civic stance.
Since March 2023, these peaceful protests have taken place every 18th of the month, demanding amnesty for political prisoners and the establishment of the rule of law.
In her Wednesday publication, the intellectual clearly summarized the meaning of her perseverance: "This is not about egocentrism or madness, as the oppressors have claimed in an attempt to discredit our determination. It is about dignity. About holding our heads high and defending our civil rights."
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