Iliana Hernández Cardosa (Guantánamo, 1973) is a Cuban activist and reporter for CiberCuba in Havana, residing in Cojímar, a municipality in Havana, Cuba. A cyclist, model, and dancer, she emigrated to Spain in 1996, where she studied dental prosthetics and community management, and worked as a stand-in for leading actresses in series and films.
She decided to repatriate to Cuba, where she created, presented, and produced Lente Cubano, an audiovisual program that illustrated Cuban reality through culture, civic engagement, the promotion of private businesses, and the dissemination of both well-known and emerging artists on the island. In September 2016, she launched the program in Miami and was warned upon her return to the island at the airport about its content, particularly the section "Civic Complaints." The audiovisual, which circulated online and through El Paquete, brought her to the attention of State Security, and in February 2017, Hernández, also a founding member of the movement Somos+, was detained in Old Havana and stripped of her personal belongings.
Before this arrest, Iliana had already suffered others for her work as an activist in Somos +, her participation in the 2013 Estado de Sats project, and in 2016, alongside José Daniel Ferrer, leader of UNPACU, who was deported to Santiago de Cuba.
Hernández Cardosa's work is marked by numerous threats and arrests that have not prevented her from continuing her role as a street reporter in Cuba. In May 2019, she was violently detained along with other activists during a march organized by the Cuban LGBTI+ community. In January 2020, State Security agents and the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) raided her home searching for red paint that could link her to the opposition movement Clandestinos, whose actions aim to eliminate, with this color paint, images of Fidel Castro by splashing it on murals and busts.
In the Cuban regime's attempt to sabotage her activities, she was accused (January 2020) of the crime of receiving stolen goods, and her personal belongings were confiscated on the grounds that, according to the regime, they lacked documentation proving their ownership. In February 2020, the activist received a death threat while conducting one of her usual Facebook broadcasts from Havana. A user entered the chat to tell her that one of these days she would "wake up with her mouth full of ants." In June, Hernández reported that her internet had been cut off hours before a peaceful protest organized by independent groups to demand justice following the murder of a young man by a police officer in Guanabacoa. She was ultimately detained to prevent her from attending the protest.
Iliana Hernández will continue her fight for change in Cuba despite the danger and the repercussions faced by those opposing the regime. "They cannot force me to agree with a totalitarian system that abuses power, humiliates, mistreats, and enslaves the Cuban people," she insists.
