The Cuban activist Anna Bensi reported this Monday that a police officer came to the staircase of her building in Alamar, Havana, and threatened to arrest her after she documented the police siege set up around her.
“Let her keep trying her strength, because I’m really going to take her away”, said the agent, as Bensi reported on her X account in the early hours of Monday.
The threat came during the police siege reported by the activist, who mentioned that patrols and undercover agents surrounded her building to prevent her and her mother, Caridad Silvente, from attending a cultural event at the United States Embassy in Havana.
Bensi responded to the threat with irony: “Was it all just a joke at first or what?” she asked in her post, making it clear that the possibility of an arrest—already realized in the past—now weighs upon her explicitly and personally once again.
The seriousness of the episode lies in the fact that Bensi is already serving an active sentence.
On October 1, 2026, the People's Municipal Court of Havana del Este sentenced Anna Bensi and her mother to two years of restriction of freedom under Article 393 of the Cuban Penal Code for having recorded and disseminated a visit by a MININT agent to their home in March 2026.
The operation included agents disguised as nurses, street vendors, and even a baker who, as Bensi herself pointed out, "didn't bring even a single loaf of bread".
The threat to Bensi is part of a repressive wave that targeted activists and journalists during the first week of November.
Yoani Sánchez was held for nearly nine hours on November 5; Camila Acosta was handcuffed for more than eight hours on November 3 and her phone was destroyed; Anthony Martínez Román spent over 20 hours in detention before being released on November 7.
Independent content creators have also been direct targets of the regime.
Karel Daniel Hernández Bosques from 'Fuera de la Caja Cuba' was interrogated for 12 hours on November 6 in a police unit in Havana. The founders of 'El4tico', Kamil Zayas Pérez and Ernesto Ricardo Medina, have been imprisoned since February 2026 without a trial date, accused of "propaganda against the constitutional order" and "instigation to commit a crime," with sentences that could reach nine years.
The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights documented 3,438 repressive actions accumulated in Cuba between January and October 2026, including 145 surveillance operations and house arrests, which positions the escalation in November as a continuation of a systematic pattern.
After the October sentencing, the U.S. Embassy in Cuba released a strong message: "Thinking differently is not a crime".
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