Yoel Bravo López, leader of the Opposition Movement Juventud Despierta in Santa Clara and now exiled in the United States, posted a heart-wrenching account on Facebook this Monday in which he denounces that his daughter, Laura Pollán Toledo Bravo, was a victim of political persecution by the Cuban regime even before she was born.
"My daughter Laura Pollán will soon turn 13. Today I want the world to know the truth about what Castroism made an innocent girl suffer even before she was born," wrote Bravo.
According to the opponent, the "crime" of the minor began in her mother's womb, the activist Daily Rodríguez Pérez, who suffered a violent act of repudiation on July 25 in Santa Clara while she was pregnant.
At the birth of the girl, the authorities refused to register her in the maternal registry due to the name her parents had chosen: the same as Laura Pollán Toledo, founder of the Ladies in White and a symbol of peaceful resistance in Cuba, who passed away in October 2011.
That refusal to grant her legal identity left the minor without access to healthcare or education for years.
Bravo describes nearly a decade of psychological torture against his daughter: violent attacks on their home, the obligation to witness police beatings of her father, and a constant terror that caused her a nervous illness resulting in hair loss.
"He spent nearly 10 years under psychological torture: violent attacks on our home, she witnessed the brutal beatings by the police against me, the terror made her sick with nerves and caused her hair loss, and they denied her health care and education for leaving her without legal identity," he recounted.
Bravo himself has an extensive documented history of repression. In July 2020, he was struck on the head with a motorcycle helmet by State Security agents while attempting to join a march against police violence.
In January 2020, he was arrested, threatened with death during interrogation, and they attempted to falsely link him to the anonymous opposition group Clandestinos.
In January 2021, he was arrested at the Third Police Station of Santa Clara along with other activists, and in May of that same year, he was detained after protesting outside the provincial headquarters of the Communist Party demanding medication for the population.
The usual method of the State Security against Bravo has combined temporary detentions, abusive fines, and house arrests to prevent his street activism.
Finally, the opponent made an extreme decision to protect his daughter: to accept exile.
“I had to accept exile and leave Cuba so that he could be given a passport and breathe. Today he is with me, safe, waiting for his 13 years of freedom,” he wrote.
The narrative concludes with a direct question to those who defend the system: "How can the cruelty against a newborn be justified?"
The refusal to register newborns in the civil registry is a documented form of reprisal against opposition families in Cuba, depriving minors of access to basic services and leaving them in a situation of extreme vulnerability for years.
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