Andy García Lorenzo, one of the most visible faces of the protests on July 11, 2021 in Santa Clara, was arrested again this Sunday in that city, according to a report shared by activist Jonatan López.
López warned on Facebook that the young man's parents immediately stood outside the Third Police Unit in Santa Clara, where he was reportedly being held, demanding information about his situation.
«Andy García has just been detained in Santa Clara, his parents are at the third unit in that city. Please share. Andy García is free, he is not alone,» wrote López, husband of his sister Roxana García Lorenzo.
The new arrest comes just two months after State Security explicitly threatened him with severe penalties. On June 26, agents summoned him to the State Security Crimes Unit in Villa Clara and warned him that he could face between 10 and 30 years in prison, life imprisonment, or even the death penalty if he published images of military facilities or shared information with outsiders, invoking Article 116 of the Cuban Penal Code on espionage.
García Lorenzo was arrested during the 11J protests in Santa Clara and sentenced to four years in prison for the alleged crimes of contempt, public disorder, and assault, despite the prosecution requesting seven years. During his imprisonment at the Guamajal prison, he reported mistreatment, isolation, and participated in several hunger strikes.
In December 2024, he was on a hunger strike for 16 days due to the confiscation of personal letters, as his parents stood outside the prison in a scene that would be repeated this Sunday in front of the Third Unit.
He served his sentence in full and was released in July 2025, but his activism did not stop. In November of that year, he publicly identified the officer who, according to his testimony, beat him during a hunger strike in prison. Last June, he shared images of casserole protests in the Condado neighborhood of Santa Clara against power outages, which intensified the pressure from the political police on him.
During 2026, a systematic pattern of harassment and new arrests against 11J political prisoners has been documented: Yoan de la Cruz was arrested in San Antonio de los Baños in May, and Leonardo Romero Negrín was violently arrested in July in Centro Habana.
The explicit threat from State Security against Andy García, two months prior to his arrest this Sunday, suggests that his activism on social media, particularly the documentation of protests against power outages in Santa Clara, may have provoked this new repressive action.
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