The Cuban jurist and university professor René Fidel González García reacted this Saturday with a passionate message on Facebook regarding the arrest of Ariel Limias Leyva, the Cuban who protested in front of the Capitol in Havana holding a sign against the dictatorship, demanding an end to exclusion and political discrimination on the island.
Limias Leyva, 52 years old, a former pastor of the Assembly of God Church and a painter at the San José fair, ascended the steps of the Capitol —the seat of the National Assembly of People's Power— without a shirt around 2:00 p.m. on Friday, holding a sign that read "No more absurd political discrimination, down with the dictatorship." He was immediately arrested and remains detained and incommunicado at the Dragones police station in Old Havana. His wife, Yulia Morales, confirmed: "They have him incommunicado. I couldn't see him. We have no news of his condition."
González García, Doctor of Legal Sciences and former tenured professor at the University of Oriente, who was removed from his position in November 2016 in what he and human rights organizations denounced as political retaliation, published his reaction on Facebook under the hashtag #PensarEnCuba with a direct call to the regime.
"We will continue to arrive until we are all here. No more political exclusion, no more political discrimination. It was not possible before, it is not possible now, and it will never be possible to be free and enslaved at the same time," wrote the legal expert.
In his publication, he appealed to history as a central argument: "The history of Cuba is the history of Cubans fighting for political equality, for the end of oppression, and for rights and freedoms [...]. It is the history of democracy and happiness." He directed his words without concession to those in power: "There is no honor in what they do, and even less shame; it is only arrogance and the small, mediocre illusion that they can forever trample and despise a people destined for freedom."
González García concluded with a reference to José Martí that dismantles the regime's use of the national hero: "They cannot quote a line from José Martí while excluding, discriminating against, persecuting, and punishing a Cuban for their political opinion. The Master's doctrines reside in other hearts."
The immediate trigger for the protest was the sentence issued on October 1 by the People's Municipal Court of East Havana against content creator Anna Bensi and her mother, Caridad Silvente, to two years of limitation of liberty each for recording and sharing on social media the visit of a MININT agent to their home. On the same day, the evangelical pastor "Pregonero de Cristo" was arrested while attempting to reach the court to support the accused.
Yulia Morales emphasized that her husband "is not an activist nor part of any movement" and that before leaving, he told her: "Someone has to do it for our country." The father-in-law of the detained, Jose Antonio Morales, posted on Facebook: "I hold the Cuban dictatorship responsible for anything that may happen to my son-in-law in Cuba." In the protest videos, a witness is heard exclaiming: "They are going to make him disappear, they are going to make him disappear. Now no one is joining him."
This is not the first time Limias Leyva has confronted the regime on the streets: he had already done so in April 2021 and days after the 11J, when he walked through Havana with a sign that read "Freedom" and was arrested, receiving a fine for it. This time, according to reports identifying him, he remains isolated and under interrogation by the political police.
The episode occurs in a context of increasing repression: the Cuban Conflict Observatory registered a total of 663 protests and 136 acts of repression in September 2026, while Cubalex documented almost 2,000 repressive actions in the first half of the year, with 662 victims reported just in Havana.
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