The professor denounced that her double arrest was a “kidnapping with no other possible interpretation.”
14ymedio, Havana, July 19, 2026 – Cuban professor and activist Alina Bárbara López Hernández announced the start of new protest actions after being detained twice this Saturday in Matanzas while attempting to carry out her peaceful demonstration held on the 18th of every month, as part of International Nelson Mandela Day. Through Facebook, the historian recounted what happened during the day and described the second arrest as “surreal” and a “kidnapping with no other possible interpretation.”
In the post, which she uploaded at night, hours after relatives, friends, and organizations reported her temporary disappearance during her first detention, López Hernández recounted that she was intercepted near the place where a police patrol usually waits for her and was taken to a police station, where she remained for five hours.
The professor explained that an investigating officer informed her that she would be issued a warning report for “violating the precautionary measure of house arrest” imposed as part of the criminal proceedings she faces alongside sociologist Jenny Pantoja. The academic said she refused to sign the document.
After being released, she once again tried to head to the park where she holds her monthly protests. “Half a block before arriving, the patrol car that has been guarding the Provincial Party headquarters full time since the events in Morón was alerted by a plainclothes State Security agent, and they were ordered to arrest me again,” she recounted.
The very officer who had processed the warning report “was astonished” to see her detained again
Upon returning to the police station, she said, the same officer who had processed the warning report “was astonished” to see her detained again. “What are you doing here?” she asked. “Ask the patrol officers who brought me,” López Hernández replied. The officers later told her that she had to wait for someone from Counterintelligence who was going to “talk” with her, a meeting that, according to her, never took place. “I sat in the station lobby watching people who were victims of transfer scams and the theft of a solar lamp come in to file complaints,” she recounted.
“After about an hour, I said to her: ‘No one is coming to talk to me because the officers who give you your orders are cowards who don’t dare show their faces.’” Shortly afterward, the officer let her go: “Leave, I’m not going to keep you detained any longer.”
“The house arrest measure under case 40 serves them whenever it is convenient to detain me. To them, I am an object. And that’s not going to happen,” the activist emphasized in her message. The investigation López Hernández referred to is a criminal case the regime is pursuing against her and Jenny Pantoja on charges including “assault,” “contempt,” and “disobedience.” Prosecutors have requested four years in prison for López and three for Pantoja, but the trial, initially announced for last January, was postponed and has not taken place.
Prosecutors have requested four years in prison for López and three for Pantoja
In response, the professor announced a new phase of mobilizations. “I am going to begin nonviolent protests at the Municipal Court, the Prosecutor’s Office, the Party, the Government, and the State Security Operations headquarters. That trial will take place one way or another. They are going to put a free woman on trial, before, during, and after the trial,” she emphasized.
“They don’t want Jenny and me in prison because they would have to pay a high political cost, or perhaps they hope that if they keep pressuring us, we will also agree to leave Cuba. I can’t speak for Jenny, but I repeat to them: ‘If we have to suffer, we’ll suffer together, but from inside here,’” she warned at the end of her message.
So far in 2026, the activist has been systematically detained every time she has attempted to carry out her monthly protest: 12 hours in February, nearly 10 in April, and another 10 hours this past June.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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