MIAMI.- The year 2026 began in Cuba with a new repressive act against the political opposition. On January 1, State Security agents arrested in Havana Berta Soler Fernandezleader of theas Ladies of Blancor, with the sole objective of preventing him from attending the first mass of the year in the Havana Cathedral.
The arrest occurred around 2:30 in the afternoon, when Soler was preparing to leave his home on his way to the religious ceremony. According to later reported The activist herself was intercepted by members of the National Revolutionary Police and the political police, who transferred her to the Aguilera Police Unit, where she remained detained for more than four hours.
Soler was released without charge at 6:45 p.m., after having been detained in the detainee storage area along with about 18 people deprived of liberty for common crimes. “Today I was in jail,” said the opponent in an audio released after her release, confirming that the detention had no legal basis.
The political prisoner of the Black Spring of 2003, Ángel Moya, Soler’s husband, confirmed the facts on their social networks. In a post on Facebook, he denounced that the repressors released the activist after several hours in detention and recalled his status as a Lech Walesa Solidarity Prize winner and leader of an internationally recognized organization, included among those awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Conscience.
The arrest generated immediate reactions outside the Island. Cuban-American Congressman Carlos Giménez He reported the arrest on the social network and demanded his immediate release:
“From the United States Congress, we demand the immediate freedom of Berta Soler, leader of the Ladies in White in Cuba.”
Berta Soler, born in Matanzas and graduated in Microbiology, became one of the most visible figures of Cuban dissidence after the repressive wave of the Black Spring. Since then, she has led the Ladies in White, a movement made up of wives and relatives of political prisoners that emerged to demand their release and that, over time, expanded its activism in defense of human rights and religious freedom.
Throughout 2025, Soler was subjected to permanent surveillance, arbitrary arrests, threats, acts of harassment and short-term forced disappearances, a common practice of the Cuban regime to neutralize opponents without resorting to judicial processes. His work and resistance earned him, last September, the Lech Walesa Solidarity Award, awarded by the Polish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.
