Activist Iliana Hernandez Detained for 24 Hours for Celebrating Anniversary of Cuban Republic on Facebook

The activist Iliana Hernández during an event in Miami. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 21 May 2018 — The activist Iliana Hernández, director of the independent television program Lente Cubano (Cuban Lens), was released Monday after being arrested at noon on May 20 outside her home in Cojímar, east of Havana, the dissident told 14ymedio.

“I wrote a message on Facebook calling to celebrate the date on which the Republic of Cuba was founded,” explains Hernández, and State Security “thought I was going to organize something for that day.”

“Early in the the morning the whole house woke up surrounded by patrol cars and State Security officers,” Mariseli Cardoso, Hernández’s mother, told this newspaper. “At noon she left to go to her hairdresser’s house and right there they stopped her with quite a lot of violence.”

During the arrest, the police tried to take Hernández’s mobile phone but her mother managed to grab it and put it inside the house. “They took one from her once and never returned it,” explains Cardoso.

The activist confirms that she has photos of the police deployment around her home that she will publish shortly on social networks.

This is the second time this month that Hernandez has been arrested. Previously the police stopped her when she tried to enter the El Círculo gallery, where she had an exhibition as a part of the independent #00Bienal.

In March, Iliana Hernández was declared a “person of priority police interest” after an interrogation at the Cojímar station, east of Havana. The police issued a warning document and, in addition, she was prevented from traveling to Miami a few days later, as she had planned.

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