Alina Bárbara López Hernández Details Abuse Endured During Detention

Cuban historian and activist Alina Bárbara López Hernández has bravely shed light on the torment she faced at the hands of police officers during one of her numerous arrests, starkly highlighting the oppressive brutality of the regime's enforcement machinery.

In a Facebook post, López Hernández recounts the ordeal where officer María Juantorena viciously assaulted her, dragging her across the ground by her feet with the assistance of several male police officers. She was handcuffed and her hands were deliberately twisted to inflict greater pain.

In response to this aggression, López Hernández questioned the officer, asking, "What difference is there between what you do and what Batista's henchmen did during his dictatorship?"

While she did not disclose the officer's reply, she revealed the regime's reaction — not an investigation or punishment for the officers, but rather a charge against her. The prosecutor handling her case deemed the term "henchmen" offensive, incorporating it into her final arguments at the Matanzas Municipal Court, where she is seeking a four-year prison sentence for López Hernández.

This irony is telling: state agents who inflicted physical violence on a handcuffed citizen feel insulted by being likened to the enforcers of the previous dictatorship.

"Ours is merely one of the countless examples of brutality and torture experienced by citizens under this repressive system where the word 'rights' is considered subversive," López Hernández concludes in her message.

Since June 2024, the professor has been under house arrest after the government initiated criminal proceedings against her and sociologist Jenny Pantoja Torres for charges of assault, contempt, and disobedience.

The prosecution is seeking four years of imprisonment for her and three years for Pantoja. The trial, initially set for January 30, was suspended without a new date being announced, and remains unscheduled.

The repression against this intellectual began even earlier. Two months prior, after being detained at the Bacunayagua checkpoint, she was beaten, pinned face-up with a knee on her body, slapped, and held in a patrol car under the sun. A subsequent medical examination documented injuries, including a dislocated or sprained right shoulder and a subluxed left thumb.

Despite the house arrest, more than two years later, she has continued her monthly civic protest in Matanzas' Freedom Park — held on the 18th of each month since March 2023 to demand amnesty for political prisoners — and has been detained during these attempts, sometimes held for up to 12 hours.

Throughout 2026, the pattern of repression persisted: she was detained at least five times while attempting to carry out her protest, in February, April, June, July — twice in one day — and September.

The Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba has added officer María Juantorena Herrera and prosecutor Ana Lilian Caballero Arango to its list of repressors for their actions in this case.

In July 2024, over 220 individuals signed a letter denouncing the police violence against López and Pantoja, including musician Fito Páez, writer Leonardo Padura, filmmakers Fernando Pérez and Ernesto Daranas, and actor Luis Alberto García, who condemned "the use of force, the criminalization of dissent, and imprisonment."