Cuban Reporter Iliana Hernández Abducted in Cojimar, Havana

The activist was arrested when she was returning from a visit to one of her neighbors

By 14ymedio

HAVANA TIMES – Journalist Iliana Hernández, a CiberCuba contributor, was arrested at noon this Thursday in Cojimar, a neighborhood to the east of Havana. At the time of being arrested, the activist was a few blocks from her house, family sources told 14ymedio.

“I called the Cojímar police station but they told me that she had only been there for half an hour because State Security officials had transferred her to another place,” Hernandez’s mother, Maricelis Cardosa, told this newspaper.

The reporter was abducted by police officers as she was walking to her home on her way back from a visit to one of her neighbors. “There were two patrol cars, they were waiting for her, she had not noticed them but the agents were there when she turned the corner,” added Cardosa.

“She told me, Mom, I’m going to visit my friend and she arrived safely, but when she was walking home they intercepted her. My daughter does not tell lies nor has she committed any crime. They abducted her a block and a half from here, for no good reason. They are trying to intimidate people so no one comes out on November 15,” the mother denounced.

Hernandez, who in addition to Cuban nationality has Spanish, is under a travel ban that prevents her from leaving the country. She was one of the hunger strikers who held a protest at the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement last November. Since then she has lived under constant harassment from State Security that closely monitors her home with police operations to prevent her from going out to the Street.

In recent days, Hernández managed to leave home a couple times, but episodes such as this afternoon show that the surveillance on her continues. The reporter has also had her phone line and mobile data service cut off for long periods without ever receiving a response from the telecommunications monopoly Etecsa.

Amnesty International’s Director for the Americas, Erika Guevara, denounced Hernandez’s arrest as “arbitrary detention.” Likewise, activist Thais Mailen Franco, who was imprisoned for almost five months after her participation in the Obispo street demonstration, wrote on her networks: “return Iliana Hernández to the people.”

Saily Gonzalez also denounced the arrest. She wrote: “Iliana Hernández has been kidnapped a few minutes ago. But Iliana is not alone. We are all very aware and already reporting, increasingly sure that these atrocities cannot continue to happen. in Cuba”.

Read more from Cuba here on Havana Times.