The Cuban historian and activist Alina Bárbara López Hernández was detained twice on Saturday in Matanzas while attempting to carry out her monthly civic protest, coinciding with International Nelson Mandela Day. She herself recounted what happened in a Facebook post where she described the second detention as "surreal" and a "kidnapping with no other possible interpretation."
During the first detention, López remained at the police station for approximately five hours. The instructor issued a warning notice for violating the house arrest measure imposed on her as part of the so-called "case 40." The activist refused to sign it and stated that she did not consider herself warned.
Upon exiting, she headed back to the park. Half a block away from arriving, a patrol car—alerted by an undercover officer—received the order to detain her for the second time.
What followed, in his own words, bordered on the absurd. Upon returning to the station, the same officer who had filed the report moments earlier was taken aback: "What are you doing here?" she asked. "Ask the patrol officers who brought me," López replied.
The agents took the officer aside and informed her that someone from Counterintelligence would come to "talk" with the activist. No one showed up. After waiting for almost an hour in the station's lobby, López told the officer, "No one is going to come to talk to me because the Counterintelligence officers who send you are cowards who don't dare to show their faces."
Soon after, the officer informed her, "You may go, I'm not going to keep you detained any longer."
López did not miss the irony of the situation: during the first detention, he took the opportunity to read the book No Violent Strategic Struggle: 100 Practical Tips, by activist Omar López Montenegro.
The "case 40" is the judicial process that the regime is pursuing against López and sociologist Jenny Pantoja, with charges that the activist herself describes as fabricated by Counterintelligence: "attempted murder," "contempt," and "disobedience" for her, and "attempted murder" for Pantoja. The Prosecutor's Office is requesting four years of imprisonment for López and three for Pantoja. The file has been kept for a year in the Municipal Court of Matanzas without a trial being summoned: it was announced for January 30, 2026, and was suspended just a few hours later without explanation or a new date. When the president of Law Firm #2 consulted the president of the court about when the hearing would take place, the response was: "no idea."
López denounces the trap in which the regime has him: "I am not judged in a court, thereby violating due process, but the measure of house arrest under case 40 serves them to detain me at their convenience."
So far in 2026, the activist has been systematically detained every time she attempts to carry out her monthly protest: 12 hours in February, nearly ten in April, and ten in June.
In response to the repression on Saturday, López announced that he will escalate his actions: "Do you think it's wrong that I go out on the 18th? Well, it won't just be that day. I will begin non-violent protests at the Municipal Court, at the Prosecutor's Office, the Party, the Government, and at the State Security Operations headquarters."
In his post, he also mentioned that on the same day Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara was exiled from Cuba, and concluded with a statement about his own decision not to leave the island: “if we have to suffer, we suffer together. But we stay here.”
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