The Cuban philosopher and activist Alina Bárbara López Hernández published this Sunday on her Facebook profile a reflection on four years of civic activism in which she advocates for civil disobedience as the only possible path against the dictatorship and urges the Cuban citizenry not to remain on the sidelines of politics.
The text commemorates the fourth anniversary of an episode that marked a turning point in her career: on October 25, 2022, a team from Counterintelligence traveled from Havana to Matanzas with the purpose of "interviewing her." They were unsuccessful. López Hernández refused to attend, filed a complaint with the Provincial Attorney's Office of Matanzas, and the summons was suspended the following day, after the prosecutor herself acknowledged that the documents lacked the mandatory legal formalities.
"That day I understood that it was not enough to write and analyze the reality of my country from the perspective of the social sciences; I had to involve myself in the fight for my rights as a citizen and an academic," wrote López Hernández. "If in that process I have been able to contribute to the struggle for common rights, I feel satisfied."
Doctor in Philosophical Sciences and corresponding member of the Academy of History of Cuba, López Hernández describes the cost and meaning of that shift with a paradox: "I have never been so repressed as during this period; I have never felt as free as I feel today."
In her publication, the academic from Matanzas defines the framework of her action: "Civil disobedience and nonviolent protest are the ways to engage in politics within an oppressive regime like the one in Cuba, where we are left with no options but to die slowly or emigrate." She concludes with a direct call to action: "There is no doubt, we must get involved in politics; there is no other way. The belief that it was not our role as citizens was the only lasting 'achievement' of the Cuban political system. No more."
The teacher accompanied the text with an image of Mahatma Gandhi and a quote attributed to him: "No one is obligated to cooperate in their own loss or their own enslavement. Civil disobedience is an inalienable right of every citizen."
The reflection comes at a time of intense pressure on López Hernández. Since June 2024, he has been under a precautionary measure of house arrest in the context of a case he shares with the sociologist Jenny Pantoja Torres on charges of assault, contempt, and disobedience. The Prosecutor's Office is seeking four years of imprisonment for her and three for Pantoja. The trial, scheduled for January 30, was suspended without announcing a new date and has yet to be rescheduled.
Despite being under house arrest, López Hernández has continued her monthly civic protest at the Parque de la Libertad in Matanzas—which she has held every 18th since March 2023 to demand amnesty for political prisoners—and has been detained at least five times in 2026 during these attempts, with detentions lasting up to 12 hours.
In a recently published essay in Letras Libres, the academic coined the term "civilizational regression" to describe decades of structural deterioration in Cuba and documented that the country fell 32 places in the Human Development Index between 2007 and 2021-2022.
According to official figures from the ONEI cited by the professor, in 2025, 68,064 people were born in Cuba compared to 136,214 deaths, an unprecedented demographic gap in the island's history.
Prisoners Defenders documented 1,372 political prisoners in Cuba as of October 1, 2026, a record number, with "public disorder" being the most common charge, applied in 577 cases. This is the backdrop against which López Hernández has made his most direct call: "To organize and demand social rights from below, one must start by having political rights."
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