A man was arrested this Friday by security agents of the Cuban regime at the Capitolio of Havana for carrying a sign with the slogans "No more absurd political discrimination" and "Down with the dictatorship."
The incident occurred around 2:00 p.m. and was captured on video by witnesses. The footage was shared by Martí Noticias and by the activist Idelisa Diasniurka Salcedo Verdecia on Facebook.
A second video showed the protester walking down Monte Street with a sign that read "Patria y Vida" and "Libertad" on the back, slogans that have become emblematic of the Cuban opposition movement since the historic protests of July 11, 2021.
Eyewitnesses reported that the man was intercepted by agents upon arriving at the Capitol area.
In one of the videos, a voice can be heard among the small crowd watching the scene: "They are going to make him disappear, they are going to make him disappear. Now no one is joining him."
The identity of the protester was not immediately confirmed by any source.
Idelisa Diasniurka Salcedo Verdecia
The incident occurred a day after the People's Municipal Court of Havana del Este found Anna Bensi and her mother, Caridad Silvente, guilty and sentenced each to two years of restricted freedom for the crime of "acts against personal and family privacy," after having recorded and shared on social media a meeting with an agent from the Ministry of the Interior (MININT).
The day was marked by a extensive operation by the police and State Security, with arrests, surveillance, and restrictions reported by activists trying to reach the courthouse.
The individual action in front of the Capitol in Havana follows a documented pattern of activism in Cuba.
The activist Leonardo Romero Negrín, known for protesting with signs in public spaces since the 11J, was violently arrested on July 1, 2026 during a "cacerolazo" in Centro Habana and released three days later with a fine of 2,000 Cuban pesos.
In March 2025, another young man was arrested for protesting with a blank sign in the capital.
The incident occurs at a time of heightened repression. According to the Cuban Conflict Observatory, September 2026 recorded 663 protests, complaints, and critical expressions, along with 136 acts of repression and 11 documented violent deaths. July had been the month with the highest historical number of protests on the island, with 1,415 recorded.
The organization Cubalex documented nearly 2,000 repressive actions in the first half of 2026, with Havana being the province with the highest violations of human rights: 662 victims during that period. A report from September identified 12 patterns of repression against protesters, including intercepting, stripping, and photographing opponents.
The event this Friday comes a day after Cubans gathered in Washington to demand the release of political prisoners and to call for actions from the Trump administration against the Havana regime.
As repression intensifies within the island, the slogans "Country and Life" and "Down with the dictatorship" carried by the protester who was detained this Friday are the same ones that thousands of Cubans shouted in the streets on July 11, 2021, the largest popular protest in decades against the regime.
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