The academic says the authorities are keeping her legal case “filed away” to avoid the political cost of sending her to prison
14ymedio, Madrid, May 29, 2026 — Dr. Alina Bárbara López Hernández, co-director of the Cuba Section of the Latin American Studies Association (LASA), denounced that the Cuban regime prevented her from attending the organization’s annual congress being held this week in Paris.
In a post on her Facebook profile, she explained that despite her important position within LASA’s Cuba Section, “the Cuban Government did not allow me to attend because of the (i)legal process in which I am charged together with Jenny Pantoja, although my travel restriction dates from long before that judicial process.”
López Hernández has been under a travel ban imposed by Cuban authorities since June 2023, despite the intellectual having denounced the arbitrariness of this State decision, which contradicts the Constitution of the Republic itself.
The academic noted in her Thursday post that the prohibition makes her the first co-president of a LASA section in Cuba who is an intellectual under repression and that “this says a great deal about changing times… and about the repressive nature of the Cuban State. Even more than any declaration could say.”
“This says a great deal about changing times… and about the repressive nature of the Cuban State. Even more than any declaration could say.”
López and Pantoja are accused of the crime of assault stemming from events that occurred on June 18, 2024, when they were repressed by agents trying to prevent the peaceful protest they carry out on the 18th day of every month. In May 2025, the Prosecutor’s Office requested four years of deprivation of liberty for the intellectual, to be replaced by correctional labor without imprisonment, while for the anthropologist it requested three years, also with the option of substitution by correctional labor.
Interviewed this Friday by Martí Noticias, the academic declared that Cuban authorities are not only preventing her from leaving the country, but are also keeping her legal case and Pantoja’s shelved in order to avoid the political cost of a trial that could send the academic to prison. López Hernández stressed: “Because I am not going to accept correctional labor without imprisonment. I am going to prison, and they know it, that I will not yield on that because of ethics, conviction, and conscience.”
According to the doctor, other Cuban academics from different institutions were able to attend the event, some of them already retired. López Hernández could only share a message with the LASA congress virtually. In the post, the academic thanked colleagues in the session for the debate generated, “where it became clear that studies on Cuba will not respond to political agendas nor can they be conditioned by particular interests.”
“I am not going to accept correctional labor without imprisonment. I am going to prison, and they know it, that I will not yield on that because of ethics, conviction, and conscience.”
14ymedio had already reported this month on the leak of an internal discussion within LASA’s Cuba Section, revealing disagreements over critical positions within the association. The debate originated from a declaration proposed by lawyer and academic Raudiel Peña Barrios, urging the Cuban Government to accept dialogue with citizens who dissent from official economic, political, and social agendas. Figures such as sociologist Aurelio Alonso rejected the proposal, calling it “unacceptable” because they considered it a condemnatory statement. Alina Bárbara López was one of the voices defending the proposal, arguing from her own position as an intellectual suffering repression from State Security.
Since its founding, LASA had been a space close to the Cuban regime’s narrative within the international academic sphere, but after the July 11 protests, the State’s repressive response and the organization’s silence generated discontent among Cuban researchers and led to resignations by members both inside and outside the Island.
In July 2024, more than fifty LASA members requested that the Executive Committee explicitly condemn the “political repression” in Cuba following reports of police violence against Dr. López Hernández and Jenny Pantoja.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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