Plainclothes officers intercepted him in Marianao and beat him before taking him away in an unidentified vehicle.
Cuban mixed martial arts champion Javier Ernesto Martín Gutiérrez, known as Spiderman, was arrested this Friday in Havana after more than a week of peaceful, solitary protests against the country’s situation. According to independent journalist José Raúl Gallego, the young man was intercepted in Marianao by plainclothes officers who beat him before taking him away in an unmarked vehicle.
“They detained him on 90th Street between 41st and 43rd, near the Jesús Menéndez sports complex. They brutally beat him and took him away,” Gallego wrote on his social media, quoting the athlete’s family. The family says that, so far, they have not received any official information about his whereabouts or his condition.
The arrest occurred just hours after Martín posted a video of himself training. The scene—a black vehicle, plainclothes officers, and violence prior to the transfer—fits with documented patterns of detention against dissidents on the island.
The fighter denounced the economic crisis, accused the Cuban government and State Security, and demanded “Freedom!”
This Friday, the athlete’s sister, Yonexi Gutiérrez – a former political prisoner and resident of the US – posted a video denouncing that, despite the support on social media and media coverage, the young Gutiérrez was receiving no support on the island: “He’s been alone for a week. He does have support from those outside, but inside Cuba he has no one. Not even his own family: for some he’s crazy or a drug addict,” she stated in the video.
The arrest comes after eight days of solitary protests from the balcony of his home on 31st Avenue, across from the El Lido bus terminal. The fighter denounced the economic crisis, accused the Cuban government and State Security, and called for “Freedom!” with no company other than his cell phone and a mostly digital audience.
“The communist system is dead! Did you see State Security? It’s you! Look at yourselves! Nobody’s coming!” That’s what he shouted into the street in his videos, challenging the police to arrest him: “Come get me! Shoot me with whatever you want!”
“I’m not crazy, I’m tired”
In recent days, the athlete had denounced constant surveillance by State Security, including the presence of agents outside his home and direct pressure on his mother at her workplace. Even so, he maintained a defiant tone.
In response to attempts to discredit him for his behavior, he had replied in a video: “I’m not crazy, I’m tired,” and in response to the accusations, he insisted that he did not use drugs.
Activist Anamely Ramos had previously warned, while publicizing the athlete’s solitary protests, about a possible arrest that would expose the official discourse denying the existence of political repression in Cuba: “Are they going to hunt down this young man with their hordes of hired thugs? Know that if they do, the scandalous lie of the one who claims to be president will be even more exposed.”
Javier Ernesto Martín, nicknamed Spiderman, the Cuban Fighting League champion in the 135-pound division, had become an uncomfortable figure due to his denunciations and for staging an individual protest without organization or permission. His violent disappearance is yet another example of the intensified repression by the regime that has been unleashed this year in response to popular discontent against the Cuban government.
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