The Cuban mother Gisselle Ordóñez Milián, known on social media as Zea Gisselle, reported this Wednesday on Facebook that she received an official Summons from the Ministry of the Interior (MININT) calling her to appear this Thursday, July 16, at 10:00 am before the Head of the PNR Cocosolo Zamora Sector Group, at the 6th Unit of the National Revolutionary Police of Marianao.
The reason stated in the official document is "Interview," a term that Gisselle herself dismantled straightforwardly: "They say 'Interview,' the euphemism to avoid saying 'Interrogation.' Anyway, we'll be there tomorrow."
The notice, issued in the name of a resident of the Zamora neighborhood in the municipality of Marianao, Havana, warns that anyone who fails to appear without a valid reason will be fined up to one hundred units, and upon a second summons, may be forcibly taken and charged criminally, in accordance with article 72.1 of the Criminal Procedure Law.
Organizations like Cubalex have documented that the use of the "interview" as a reason for summons is a systematic repressive mechanism: although this term is not included as a mandatory cause for appearance in Cuban legislation, the legal consequences of failing to comply turn it into a covert coercive interrogation disguised as an administrative procedure.
Gisselle did not overlook a coincidence that she described as "hilarious": on the same day she received the document, her neighborhood woke up with electricity, water, mobile coverage, and data connection all at once, something that, according to her, hadn’t happened in over a month. "Today my neighborhood woke up with electricity, water, mobile coverage, and data connection all at the same time... hilarious, by the way, because it’s been more than a month since we’ve had any of those, let alone two of them together in the same timeframe," she wrote.
The citation comes after weeks of extreme crisis in Zamora. Since July 9, the neighborhood has been in continuous blackout, with no water, no cooking fuel, and no mobile communications. In a post from that day, Gisselle described the situation: "Without water for 4 days, without electricity for more than 24 hours, without cooking fuel. And to top it all off, cut off and isolated: no mobile coverage, no data connection."
It’s not the first time that the authorities have resorted to this mechanism against voices from the neighborhood. In June, Gisselle reported the arrest of her neighbor Yansis Valladares, who was detained for asking for food for her child and summoned with a notice for an "interview" at the same 6th PNR Unit of Marianao. In March, following protests with bonfires and clanging pots in Zamora, several mothers from the neighborhood received similar summonses.
The pressure on Gisselle is part of a broader repressive pattern. According to data from the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights reported by Infobae, the regime accumulated 1,949 repressive actions in the first half of 2026, including 257 arbitrary detentions, amidst an intensified context of repression surrounding the fifth anniversary of the 11J.
Gisselle has been publicly documenting the crisis in Zamora and the state's repressive response for months. In May, she described her neighborhood as a war zone and in June, she issued a warning that encapsulates her stance: "Negotiate and come to an agreement, we are running late."
Filed under: