Berta Soler, leader of the Damas de Blanco and Sakharov Prize laureate, was released this Monday around 10 a.m. on the street near the movement's headquarters in the Lawton neighborhood of Havana, after being in police custody for 46 hours following her arrest on Saturday during a local protest against water shortages.
Her husband, the opposition member Ángel Moya Acosta, reported the details of the arrest and release on Facebook shortly after 11 in the morning, accompanying the account with photographs of Soler's injured foot and the damaged sandal as evidence of police brutality.
According to Moya Acosta, the arrest took place at the corner of Porvenir Avenue and E Street in Lawton, where approximately twenty local women—most of whom are workers with no ties to opposition organizations—were protesting the water cutoff, which they attribute to intentional manipulation by the state company Aguas de La Habana.
The protesters did not allow men to be present with them and, in the absence of convincing responses from representatives of the Communist Party, the local government, and the company itself, they decided to peacefully disrupt traffic on the avenue, using their bodies as obstacles.
During the arrest, Soler was forcibly placed in the back of a police patrol car. Moya Acosta described that "her right foot got caught between the back door and the edge of the safety acrylic that separates the rear and front of the patrol car, and when one of the officers violently closed the door, that acrylic caused the injury to her right foot."
She was first transferred to the Aguilera Police Unit and then to the Cotorro unit, where she was confined in a dark cell.
In that second unit, she received medical attention, but the document was given to the State Security agent who was guarding her, not to her.
Before being released, Soler was interrogated by an officer from the Instruction Section of Villa Marista, who reminded her that she was under a precautionary measure of house arrest —imposed since February 2026— and that this measure could be revoked, in addition to informing her that she would be summoned soon.
Moya Acosta was also arrested on Saturday, just minutes after the women blocked traffic, and remained in custody until that same night. During his interrogation, an officer identified as "Lieutenant Colonel Kenia," from the same Instruction Section of Villa Marista, informed him that on Monday they would call the director of Aguas de La Habana and on Wednesday they would respond to those affected.
The opposition figure also pointed out that the agents monitoring Soler "had been aware of the water shortage situation since September of this year," suggesting that the repression of the protest was deliberate and not an improvised reaction.
This episode takes place during a week of intense repression. Just days earlier, the political police simultaneously besieged the homes of several activists and journalists to prevent them from attending an event at the United States Embassy, and journalist Yoani Sánchez was held for nine hours.
The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights documented 387 repressive actions just in October 2026 and more than 3,000 between January and September of the same year.
The Dama de Blanco María Cristina Labrada had warned on Sunday that Soler was still "missing" and that no one knew under what conditions she was, describing the situation as "a way to harass and repress Berta Soler Fernández and Ángel Moya and family, affecting other neighbors as well."
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