The political prisoner Andy García Lorenzo was released this Monday after spending more than 20 hours detained at the Third Unit of the National Revolutionary Police of Santa Clara, as his mother confirmed to CubaNet and announced his sister Roxana García Lorenzo on social media.
Her sister celebrated the news with a direct message: "My brother Andy Garcia has just been released. In the next few minutes, he will be able to talk with family and friends. Thank you to everyone who took a minute to ask about him, for sharing and keeping up with everything, and to those who were outside waiting for him and providing support: THANK YOU for being so brave."
García Lorenzo had been arrested on Sunday in Santa Clara while walking and recording with his phone what was happening on the street. His family emphasized that he was not participating in any demonstration when the officers detained him; he was simply documenting a spontaneous protest by neighbors against the blackouts that were affecting the area at that time.
The authorities charged him with "public disorder" and informed the family that he would be held for 24 hours. However, the detention extended beyond that timeframe before he was finally released.
The immediate context of the arrest was the severe electricity crisis affecting Villa Clara, where blackouts exceeded 20 hours a day during August 2026, resulting in social discontent and spontaneous protests in several neighborhoods.
During the hours that García Lorenzo was in custody, family and friends gathered outside the police unit to demand his release. Amid this vigil, the opposition figure Guillermo "Coco" Fariñas was also arrested after he arrived to show his support for the activist and his family. Fariñas, the 2010 Sakharov Prize winner from the European Parliament, was also released on Monday, as confirmed by García Lorenzo's own family.
Andy García Lorenzo is one of the most recognized political prisoners from July 11, 2021: he was arrested during the historic anti-government protests in Santa Clara and sentenced to four years in prison for contempt, public disorder, and assault, despite the prosecution requesting seven years. He served his full sentence at Guamajal prison and was released on July 7, 2025.
Far from abandoning activism, in June 2026 he shared images of protests with pots and pans in the Condado neighborhood of Santa Clara against power outages, which intensified the pressure from State Security on him. This new detention is the first to be publicly reported since his release from prison last year.
At the time of the release, the family was unaware of the exact conditions under which he was freed, nor whether the authorities have any ongoing proceedings against him.
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