Five months after losing her only son, Denia Fernández Rey continues to cry out for justice, now from Miami, where she is staying temporarily.
This Monday, Telemundo 51 aired an interview with the Cuban mother, who recounted the crime of Jesús Alberto Martínez Fernández, 26 years old, stabbed in June in Palma Soriano, a municipality in the province of Santiago de Cuba.
The young man died near the Galaxy bar—also known as El Villar—when, according to testimonies gathered by the communicator Yosmany Mayeta Labrada, he tried to intervene in a fight among several young men and was attacked with a knife.
"He was my only son", Denia declared. She described the attack in stark terms: "He jumped from a balcony and landed on him, killing him. He tried to defend himself, but he was practically already dead."
The Cuban woman also reported that the emergency was exacerbated by the chronic shortages in the island's healthcare system. "There was no electricity, no blood, nothing in the hospitals, no ambulance."
Cuban authorities have not issued any official statement regarding the case or the progress of the investigations.
Denia also stated that the police initially refused to hand over her son's body and that she received threats from State Security agents during the funeral process.
The funeral was attended by a large crowd. Hundreds of residents from Palma Soriano accompanied the procession in a long caravan of motorcycles in the rain. The young man was a motorcyclist and had his own motor workshop.
Days later, Denia walked the streets of Palma Soriano putting up photographs of her son on poles, corners, and avenues to demand that the case not go unpunished.
The mother directly linked the chronic blackouts to the rise in violence, noting that in Palma Soriano only two places have electricity, and that is where armed youths and drugs are concentrated.
Denia Fernández Rey is a former member of the Damas de Blanco, director of FLAMUR in Santiago de Cuba, and coordinator of the Women's Network of Cuba in the eastern region.
Her husband, Alberto Martínez, leads the Republican Party of Cuba, and Jesús Alberto himself was identified by opposition organizations as a leader of the Republican Youth Impact movement.
This connection led the mother to point to the regime as responsible. "For me, yes [the regime is behind the murder], because my son had a community and he told everyone that this regime needed to change."
The organization FLAMUR described the incident as a "vile murder" and called for measures to curb violence, while the Women's Network of Cuba directly held the Cuban state responsible "for this event and for the climate of insecurity that currently prevails on the streets."
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