Exactly five years after the protests on July 11, 2021, the young woman from Camagüey, Ariadna Pérez, spoke publicly for the first time about her detention during those demonstrations, in a testimony published on Instagram by the political prisoner and activist Reina Yacnara Barreto Batista (Nara Yack), who is currently in exile in Canada.
In the video, Ariadna describes how she was arrested during the protests in Camagüey and what happened during the four days she spent in prison.
"I was detained for 96 hours, 96 hours that taught me how the dictatorship operates. Interrogation after interrogation, methods of psychological torture and intimidation; among them, confiscating my phone, and it wasn't until I refused to let them enter my gallery and erase everything I filmed that day that they returned it to me and allowed me to leave. And there's much more which I will share someday," she declared.
The young woman stated that she feels safe to speak now that she is outside of Cuba.
According to records from human rights organizations, she was placed under house arrest on July 14, 2021, four days after her detention, as a precautionary measure.
Ariadna made it clear that her testimony is not just personal. "I make this video with the support of all those still in Cuba, who were there that day, those who are still detained, those who were previously detained, who have stood up, who are still suffering," she expressed.
He ended his message with a slogan: "Long live a Free Cuba, and may we soon be able to return home those of us who are not there. May those who bravely remain inside be able to live in freedom."
The person who disseminated the testimony is Nara Yack, a central figure in the denunciation of the repression of 11J.
Nara was 21 years old when she was arrested in Camagüey during those protests and was sentenced to four years of corrective work with internment. During her imprisonment, she suffered psychological torture and contracted COVID-19. Her father died in 2023 while she was serving her sentence.
Now exiled in Canada, she uses her platform of over 16,000 followers to amplify voices like Ariadna's.
The testimony comes at a time when the repression of 11J continues to go unpunished. At least 338 people are still imprisoned directly due to their participation in those protests, within a historic record of 1,260 political prisoners in Cuba, according to Prisoners Defenders, as of May of this year.
The pardon of April 2026 explicitly excluded those convicted of "crimes against authority," the category that the regime used to criminalize the demonstrators of July 11.
The most emblematic case is that of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, whose five-year sentence ended on July 9, but who remains missing after being taken from Guanajay prison by State Security on July 7. Amnesty International classified the case as forced disappearance.
In Camagüey, the repression on July 11 was particularly brutal: one protester was shot by the police, and the priest Castor José Álvarez was arrested and beaten for defending a 14-year-old during the protests.
Nara Yack introduced the video of Ariadna with these words: "She has never spoken on camera about what happened that day for her. And today she wanted to send a supportive video to all those people who have gone through something similar and are still suffering."
Filed under: