They remained in police custody throughout the day and returned home in conditions of physical exhaustion, relatives reported.
MADRID, Spain.- The Cuban professor and intellectual Alina Bárbara López Hernández, her daughter Lilian Borroto López, the writer Jorge Fernández Era and the historian and anthropologist Jenny Pantoja Torres returned to their homes this Thursday in conditions of physical exhaustion, after spending the whole day in detention by the Cuban authorities in operations carried out in Matanzas and Havana.
The release was confirmed by Celia Borroto López, daughter of López Hernández, through several posts on Facebook. In one first update, He reported that his mother, his sister and Fernández Era had been released, and specified that during their detention warning reports were drawn up against them, without clear legal grounds being offered to them. He described the reasons alleged by the authorities as “illogical.”
Later, Borroto López also confirmed the release of Jenny Pantoja Torres, who had been arrested that same day in Havana when she was preparing to demonstrate peacefully in the Central Park, in solidarity with López Hernández.
The activist she remained missing for several hours for his relatives, who went to the Dragones police station in search of information. According to them, the authorities initially denied that she was detained in any police unit.
According to the testimony of Borroto López, Alina Bárbara López Hernández, Jorge Fernández Era and Lilian Borroto López arrived home without having eaten food all day and in the middle of a blackout, which aggravated their state of fatigue. He noted that his mother was stable, although visibly exhausted, like the rest of those released, and that they all needed time to recover after their arrest.
The arrests occurred in the context of an operation in which State Security intervened directly, with the aim of preventing a new peaceful civic action called by López Hernández and Fernández Era, who for months have been carrying out symbolic protests every day the 18th. These initiatives demand, among other points, a democratic National Constituent Assembly, attention to extreme poverty and the cessation of harassment against those who exercise freedom of expression.
So much Lopez Hernandez like Pantoja Torres have been charged in recent years with alleged crimes of contempt, attack and disobedience, charges that human rights organizations consider part of a pattern of criminalization of peaceful protest in Cuba. Both, like Fernández Era, have been constantly subjected to harassment and repression.
