“What’s the point of dedicating fuel to a patrol car and several policemen to repress me?”
14ymedio, Havana, November 19, 2024 — Art historian and political activist Miryorly García was arrested and questioned this Monday by State Security when she left her home on the 18th, the date chosen every month by Professor Alina Bárbara López Hernández to demonstrate for a peaceful transition in Cuba and the freedom of political prisoners. García, who lives in Havana and has protested in support of her colleague on previous occasions, was taken to a police station and returned home after being given a warning.
According to the activist, it is common for the regime to monitor her home on the 18th of each month to prevent her from going to a park with a bust of José Martí. “I looked out my door and didn’t see any motorcycles or agents watching my house from the doctor’s office. Since they sometimes no longer have enough material and human resources, I told myself that it was the 18th and there was no surveillance. I thought that this time I could leave my house,” she explains in a Facebook post denouncing the arrest.
However, after leaving her home, García was intercepted by two agents, one who identified himself as Fernando and a policewoman who did not give her name. “It didn’t occur to me to look a little more towards the corner, where the patrol was hiding behind the garbage containers,” explains the historian, who says that the police surveillance has become a “joke” for the neighbors, who wonder “how in a country with so many shortcomings, so many human and material resources are spent, especially the precious fuel, on watching and repressing me.”
The agent warned García that she could not leave her home, to which the activist replied that she was going to work. “They immediately signaled the patrol car. The woman kept telling me to stop and another policewoman got out, and both told me to get in the car,” she says. “As usual, I didn’t resist and got in.”
The agent warned García that she could not leave her home, to which the activist replied that she was going to work
In the station to which García was transferred, “there was no electricity.” During the “dialogue,” the historian defended her right to leave her house. “I always spoke out loud so that everyone would hear – those who were outside the office too. I told them their work is shameful, illegal, arbitrary, reprehensible, and that those women dishonor the name of Mariana Grajales,” she added, referring to the police women’s brigades that bear that name.
The opponent explained that she had left her mother alone, for whom she had to prepare lunch. “The State Security agent pretended to be worried, like a blackmailing mafia, and asked me if my mother had her medicines. I replied that they were almost never in the pharmacy and that’s what they should be taking care of,” she says. Faced with the officer’s proposal to get her the medicine, García refused.
“I don’t want to be repressed with polite phrases. I don’t want any favors, even if it’s a medicine for my mother. I don’t accept that they use the patrol car as if it were a taxi and proposed to take me to the Galería where I work, wait for me and then take me home,” she says.
García, who reflected on the attitude of the political police officers, called on them to “also serve to protect citizens and feel proud of what they do. You are the ones who choose to be my repressors; don’t wait for me to bow my head or lower my voice,” she said.
“They are talking softly so that my neighbors don’t see them arrest me, hiding the patrol car behind the garbage containers, away from my house, fleeing from the photos. Yes, they are already aware of lying, hiding, masking themselves, pretending to have good intentions. That is, they are aware that what they do is wrong. But for many, like the ones I saw today, there is no shame for what they do. I know that one day, sooner rather than later, they will feel ashamed,” she said.
The detention lasted less than half an hour, and the activist was returned home
The detention lasted less than half an hour, and the activist was returned home. Hours later, García published another post on social networks from the park that she intended to reach in solidarity with Alina Bárbara López. “In a dirty park full of grass, I met Martí on November 18. There I sat with him to think about the point of dedicating the fuel of a patrol car and the work of several policemen and State Security agents to restrict me from leaving the house,” she posted.
On Monday, other activists and opponents who, like García, tried to support López’s peaceful protest for the freedom of political prisoners were also prevented from taking to the streets. The teacher explained on social networks that journalist Jorge Fernandez Era was also being watched by a patrol.
However, López, who on other occasions has been arrested, forced to stay at home and even faced a trial for her public statements of disagreement with the regime, was not disturbed this time. “Today I carried out the peaceful protest of every 18th in the Freedom Park without being disturbed. On this occasion I was accompanied by Mario Amílcar Quesada Zamora, a young man who, like so many compatriots, wishes for a civic and democratic transformation where we don’t spend our lives feeling hopeless. Madelyn Sardiñas Padrón in Camagüey and Mabel Melo in Artemisa were not harassed either,” she summarized.
Translated by Regina Anavy
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