Opponent José Antonio Pompa López Arrested

The peaceful opposition and former Cuban political prisoner José Antonio Pompa López was arrested at his home in Old Havana by agents of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR).

“Right now, the sector chief has just arrived at my house to arrest me. He says that I have to accompany him to the police station because State Security wants to talk to me,” the opposition member denounced via telephone just before the arrest.

In statements to CubaNet, his wife, Suarmi Hernández Vilar, said that her husband was transferred to the Dragones police station, according to the information provided by the sector chief.

“They supposedly took him to Dragones to talk to him but we do not know what could happen to him while in the hands of security,” she added.

Last week, the opponent and member of the Coalition of Cuban Self-Employed had hung a sign on the balcony of his home which read, “S.O.S my children are dying of hunger.”

Shortly after the protest, he was visited by the Cuban State Security, which demanded he remove the sign. The harassment by State Security

Pompa López worked as a pizza maker at a private pizzeria (Pizzas Pachi), but due to pressure from State Security, the business owner fired him and his economic situation worsened.

Days after the dismissal, he decided to protest in response to the repressive action of the Cuban regime.

The activist has been sent to prison on a couple of occasions for staging protests in public roads. For this reason, he was sentenced to two and a half years in jail on charges of “public disorder.”

In 2011, he was also expelled from his workplace due to harassment by the regime’s repressive organs, which, according to his complaint, try to break him by starvation.