Lumey Guzmán Fernández, a 44-year-old self-employed individual residing in Alamar, was released after paying a bail of 7,000 Cuban pesos (CUP), although the judicial process against her remains active and she will have to face the charges from her home, as a family source confirmed to the organization Justicia 11J.
Lumey had been arrested on July 9 after posting a video on Facebook in which she criticized the prolonged blackouts in her neighborhood—where she had been without electricity for over 90 hours—and directly addressed Miguel Díaz-Canel, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, and Lis Cuesta.
The authorities initially accused her of contempt of court, and her family feared that the charge of sedition would also be added.
After her arrest, Lumey went through the police station in Cojímar and on July 15, she was transferred to El Vivac, where she remained in preventive detention and isolated. Two days later, she was taken to the prison of El Guatao, where her family reported that she had lost a lot of weight and was showing a deterioration in her mental state. Her profiles and videos on social media were deleted after her detention.
Justicia 11J emphasized that the release from prison does not mean the end of persecution: "Now she is out of prison, but she remains subjected to a process for peacefully exercising her freedom of expression and expressing her dissatisfaction with the situation in the country."
The organization described the events as a form of institutionalized repression: "The use of the judicial system to pursue dissenting voices, intimidate those who challenge authority, and instill fear among those who expose the reality of Cuba constitutes a form of repression."
This mechanism has also been documented by Cubalex, which warned in 2026 that bail works as economic repression: it imposes financial burdens on already impoverished families and keeps the accused under indefinite judicial control, extending punishment to their family surroundings.
The case of Lumey is set against a backdrop of repressive actions linked to the electrical crisis ravaging Cuba in 2026. On July 8, the Electric Union recorded a generation deficit of up to 2,341 MW, a record figure in the country's history.
The blackouts triggered protests in multiple locations, to which the regime responded with mass arrests: at least 24 people were arrested following the Luyanó protest on July 9, and another six after a demonstration in Loma del Chivo, Guantánamo, on the 17th of that month.
Alamar, the neighborhood of Lumey, has been a recurring scene of protests and repression related to blackouts with documented incidents since May 2026.
The overall repressive landscape shows no signs of relief. Prisoners Defenders closed July 2026 with 1,327 documented political prisoners in Cuba, the highest number recorded by the organization, with 36 new additions that month, 15 of which were directly linked to civic protests.
The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights recorded almost two thousand repressive actions in the first half of 2026, including 257 arbitrary detentions.
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