The Cuban décima poet Irán Caballero, residing in Miami, published this Friday on his Facebook profile a décima dedicated to Anna Bensi —Ana Sofía Benítez Silvente, 21 years old— a day after the Municipal People's Court of East Havana sentenced her and her mother to two years of restricted freedom.
Caballero clarified that he had written the poem earlier, but that day "it deserves to be published." The décima portrays the young woman as a symbol of resistance and compares her to Mariana Grajales, a heroine of Cuban independence known as the "Mother of the Homeland," by writing: "As if there were no mariana / Without a homeland, but without a master / Reincarnating in her demand / For Cuban freedom."
The complete poem describes her as "a girl with steel ovaries / Who keeps the anthill / Stirred against tyranny / An example of courage / And human dignity." The reference to Mariana Grajales Coello—born on July 12, 1815, in Santiago de Cuba and mother of Antonio Maceo—adds a historical and patriotic dimension to the composition that the Cuban exile community has been able to interpret clearly.
The décima by Caballero joins the one published on Friday by the poet and improviser Juan Carlos García Guridi, who also dedicated a composition to the case with the verse: "Dignity cannot / fall into a gray lethargy." García Guridi had previously written, in September, the poem "Sin más partido" in defense of the political prisoner José Gabriel Barrenechea, which shows a chain of poetic responses from both exile and the island in light of the regime's repression.
The case that prompted both verses originated in March of this year when MININT sub-official Yoel Leodán Rabaza Ramos visited the home of Anna Bensi and her mother, Caridad Silvente Laffita, in Alamar to deliver a summons from State Security. Mother and daughter recorded the encounter and shared the footage on social media. The agent reportedly demanded, as revealed by Anna Bensi herself, "a public apology video to restore his morale."
After being formally charged on March 25 and placed under house arrest, the case was archived and later reopened in July following a complaint filed by the agent himself. The trial on October 1 was presided over by Judge Zamira Marrero Morgado —pointed out by activists for having been part of tribunals that tried demonstrators from July 11, 2021— and concluded with a sentence under Article 393 of the Penal Code, which categorizes "acts against personal and family privacy."
The organization Cubalex warned that this regulation protects the private lives of individuals, not the official actions of state agents.
Upon hearing the verdict, Anna Bensi stated at the courthouse doors: "My mother and I were found guilty of the crime we were accused of, an alleged crime." She added, "None of us are criminals." Only one defense witness was allowed into the trial; the evangelical pastor Rolando Fidel Pérez Lora and activist David Espinosa Martínez were arrested while attempting to attend.
The sentence triggered a widespread wave of international solidarity. Cuban-American congress members Mario Díaz-Balart, María Elvira Salazar, and Carlos A. Giménez demanded the unconditional release of both. Salazar described the process as "a desperate act by a dying dictatorship attempting to intimidate and silence the Cuban people."
The United States Embassy in Havana summarized its position with the phrase "Thinking differently is not a crime," while the Assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs, Juan Pablo Segura, wrote on X that "the cowardice of the Cuban regime knows no bounds."
The décima —a poetic form of ten octosyllabic verses deeply rooted in Cuban popular culture— thus becomes a tool of denunciation that exiles use to keep alive the memory of those whom the regime seeks to silence.
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