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The historian and activist from Matanzas, Alina Bárbara López Hernández, succeeded on Thursday in carrying out her monthly civic protest at the Park of Freedom in Matanzas and was detained for ten hours at the police station, describing it as an unprecedented day in her resistance journey.
"Yesterday, two things happened that had never occurred together: I was able to carry out an act of civic protest and I was detained for ten hours at the police station," López wrote on her Facebook profile.
To evade surveillance, he resorted to a simple strategy: he publicly announced that he would be at the park between 11 AM and 12 PM, but he left at dawn and arrived at 7:30 AM. "They weren't expecting me," he summarized.
Holding a handmade cardboard sign calling for amnesty for political prisoners, López positioned himself in front of the provincial Party headquarters on the busy Milanés street. Drivers and passengers in vehicles, motorcycles, and electric cars slowed down to take a look.
Thirty minutes later, the episode that López labeled as proof of the clumsiness of Counterintelligence occurred. A luxury car, "the kind not usually seen," stopped beside him. The driver—whose identity as a State Security agent López said was obvious at first glance—claimed to support his cause and asked if he knew people willing to "bring down the system," adding that he had brought from the United States a quantity of "scuba gear"—balaclavas—to organize groups.
López responded firmly: "I do know a lot of people willing to fight, but not with their faces covered. These people believe in the importance of struggling through non-violent strategies." When the man insisted, she replied: "Historically, there have been regimes that have yielded to non-violent strategies. And in Cuba, we have the example of how violence to overthrow a dictatorship did not bring democracy along with it."
Before the man visibly grew uncomfortable, López issued a warning: "Be careful with those proposals, in Cuba, for every square meter there can be two state agents."
Five minutes after the vehicle left, a police patrol returned. An officer greeted her by name and informed her that she needed to accompany them for violating her house arrest. López got into the patrol car without resistance and managed to send a message to her daughter to let her know.
At the station, they took her to a meeting room with "uncomfortable seats and walls covered in propaganda and excerpts from speeches by Fidel, Raúl, and Díaz-Canel." There she remained for ten hours until the order came to impose a warning notice on her—which she refused to sign—and confiscate the poster.
It is the third prolonged detention that López has experienced in 2026, each time he attempts to carry out his monthly protest: twelve hours on February 18 and almost ten hours on April 18. He has been holding these peaceful protests on the 18th of each month since March 2023, demanding amnesty for political prisoners, an end to repression, and a Constitutional Assembly.
The episode occurs exactly two years after López and her companion Jenny Pantoja Torres were detained and beaten on June 18, 2024. Both face charges of "assault" with a prosecutor's request for four and three years in prison, respectively. The trial, scheduled for January 30, 2026, has been indefinitely suspended with no new date.
López denounces that this procedural paralysis is deliberate: "This is why they have stalled the legal process against Jenny and me; it is very convenient to resort to house arrest when they need to. But this must come to an end." He announced that in the coming days he will remind the Municipal Court of Matanzas that the case is still pending, while Cuba maintains between 1,207 and 1,260 political prisoners according to human rights organizations.
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