The organization Cubalex reported on Thursday that the activist Gisselle "Zea" (Gisselle Ordóñez Milián), a mother and resident of the Zamora neighborhood in Marianao, Havana, was subjected to several hours of interrogation by State Security officials on July 16, in a procedure characterized by threats, intimidation, and the use of her minor child as a means of pressure.
According to the report shared by Cubalex, the activist received a summons from MININT on July 15 with less than 24 hours' notice to appear at the 6th Unit of the National Revolutionary Police of Marianao.
Although the summons indicated that she would be interviewed by the sector chief, in practice, she was interrogated by two agents from the State Security Department identified as "Antonio" and "Luisito," along with the criminal instructor "Andy."
During the interrogation, the officers questioned her political stance and asked if she had participated in protests, including noise demonstrations in her neighborhood. They assured her that participating in demonstrations "constituted a crime" and labeled her as a "leader of her community" due to her social media posts, the photographs she has shared of police operations during protests, and her community work.
The agents also tried to link her to a poster that appeared in her neighborhood against the ruling Miguel Díaz-Canel: they asked her to write the alphabet on a sheet of paper to compare her handwriting with that of the message. Gisselle refused, believing they could use it to incriminate her.
Additionally, they warned him that they could attribute funding from abroad to him and held him responsible for the reproduction of his publications in independent media.
One of the most serious moments of the interrogation was when the officers hinted at possible actions regarding the custody of her minor child, using it as leverage to intimidate her.
At the end of the procedure, they forced her to sign a warning document and informed her that she would be summoned again, this time to Villa Marista, the main headquarters of the State Security Department in Havana, warning her that "the procedure there would be different."
Gisselle has been documenting and publicly denouncing the crisis of basic services in her community for months. On July 6, she reported 38 consecutive hours without electricity and an entire week without drinking water in Zamora, and she has participated in pot-banging events and protests in the neighborhood since at least March 2026.
The case is not isolated. Just days before, the activist Edel Carrero was summoned by State Security in Villa Marista in the context of the fifth anniversary of the 11J protests.
Cubalex warns that what happened to Gisselle "reflects a documented pattern of arbitrary summons, intimidating interrogations, threats, attempts to link critical individuals with alleged criminal acts, and the use of family members, including minor children, as a pressure mechanism to deter the exercise of freedom of expression, civic participation, and the defense of human rights."
That pattern is supported by the figures: in June 2026, Cubalex recorded 319 repressive events and 608 incidents of harassment across the country, in addition to at least 40 minors in Cuban prisons.
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