The Cuban historian and activist Alina Bárbara López Hernández published a call for civic resistance this Friday in honor of International Nelson Mandela Day, which is celebrated this Saturday, July 18, announcing that she will protest in Matanzas despite anticipating that she will be arrested.
In her Facebook post, the activist—who has been under house arrest since June 2024—calls on Cubans to make civil disobedience their primary tool of struggle.
"If there is any place where Mandela's teachings are needed, it is in Cuba, a country where freedom and prosperity have been unresolved debts for decades," wrote López Hernández.
The International Nelson Mandela Day was proclaimed by the UN in 2009 and is celebrated every July 18, the birthday of the South African leader. The theme for 2026 is "It is still in your hands to combat poverty and inequality."
In her text, the activist identifies the true instrument of control of the regime: "The most powerful weapon that the Cuban state has is not its special troops, its police patrols, its thousands of agents on motorbikes, nor its laws tailored to power, not even its horrific prisons; it is our obedience, our apathy, and the acceptance of many, inoculated with a calculated indoctrination, that all change must come from others, never through our own efforts."
From this premise, he argues that civil disobedience terrifies the regime more than any violent action: "They fear it more than violent actions, because it can lead to deeper and more lasting changes than armed struggle."
López Hernández proposes specific forms of peaceful resistance: noise protests with pots and pans, refusals to participate in so-called "police interviews," non-violent demonstrations protected by the Cuban Constitution, and the use of signs on doors and windows for those who fear going out into the street.
It also recounts an episode that illustrates the hypocrisy of the regime: about three months ago, a State Security officer who identified himself as a psychologist told her at the police station in Matanzas that "this cannot be overturned with little papers" and urged her to go to the Sierra and fight with weapons. "The only time I have been invited to commit a crime" was at that moment, she remarked, using the episode to contrast her commitment to civic resistance.
This is not the first time that authorities have attempted to suppress their monthly protests. On February 18, she was detained for 12 hours along with Leonardo Romero Negrín. On April 18, she experienced another detention lasting nearly 10 hours, and on June 18, she was detained again for a similar duration.
Anticipating what will happen this Saturday, he remarked ironically that he will leave at one-thirty in the afternoon to reduce waiting hours. "The patrol will be waiting there because there's always fuel for repressing us, regardless of the oil embargo," he wrote, directly alluding to the energy crisis that paralyzes the country without preventing the regime from deploying its repressive forces.
The trial against Alina Bárbara and Jenny Pantoja, scheduled for January 30, 2026, has been suspended indefinitely without any explanations, in yet another act of illegality by the legal system subordinated to the regime.
The call comes at a time of unprecedented repression: according to Prisoners Defenders, as of July 9, Cuba has a historic record of 1,306 political prisoners, including 40 minors.
The activist recalled Mandela's visit to Cuba in 1991 to express gratitude for Cuban support in the fight against apartheid, and the absurdity of his legacy being disregarded on the Island itself. She concluded her post with a personal reflection: "I am not repressed because I became an activist; I became an activist precisely because they began to repress me. Until that moment, I was just writing."
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