On Friday, October 2, Ariel Limias Leyva walked shirtless through the dusty streets of Havana, holding up a giant placard. “No more absurd political discrimination,” read one side. The other: “Homeland, Life, and Liberty.”

People filmed him and stopped at the sound of his shouts: “Down with Díaz-Canel!” “Down with the Revolution!” They stared at him as if he were an alien being — displaying a suicidal courage unknown to many Cubans.

Ariel carried the placard as if it were a giant cross. No one helped him; no one joined him on his journey. He passed by like a comet that draws the eye, sparking curiosity with the brilliance it emits.

His pilgrimage ended at the Havana Capitol — that symmetrical, monumental building featuring classical columns, a pediment, and proportions inspired by Greco-Roman architecture, designed in the 1920s to project the image of a modern Republic.

Like its counterpart in Washington, D.C. — and in keeping with the broad republican tradition across the Americas — it once housed the legislature. Laws were crafted there following the debates and expressions of dissent that have been banned on the island since 1959, the year the Republic’s Congress was dissolved by the Castro regime.

By the time Ariel — then 52 — first encountered the Capitol, the Havana landmark was little more than a symbolic relic of the “bourgeois” past reviled by the textbooks and official speeches of his upbringing.

A broad flight of steps leads up to the Capitol’s main façade. Lugging his placard, Ariel climbed the 55 steps. The words “Homeland” and “Life” were written on his body. He reached the top near one of the monumental sculptures guarding the entrance: The Tutelary Virtue of the People.

From there, he shouted, “Long live Christ the King!” — a phrase holding deep, painful significance in the island’s history. It was the final cry of thousands of dissident Christians facing firing squads in the moats of El Morro Castle during the early decades of the Revolution.

Then Ariel shouted again, “Down with the dictatorship!” as several police officers quickened their pace and climbed the steps from the busy Paseo del Prado. Shortly after, he was handcuffed and taken to a police cruiser.

He ended up at Villa Marista — the headquarters of Castro’s political police, a tropical Lubyanka steeped in a history of torture and abuse.

When I spoke this weekend with his wife, Yulia Morales, she said she had gone to the facility, but his family had not been allowed to see him. The official handling Ariel’s case has not yet definitively stated what charges will be brought against him; initially, he was accused of “public disorder,” and later of violating the limit on how far up the steps one is permitted to go.

The henchmen are spoiled for choice; if no charge exists that is severe enough to punish a brave man like Ariel, they simply fabricate one or have their army of paper-pushers write it up.

Speaking to the press, Yulia explained that Ariel took to the streets out of indignation over the repression of Havana-based influencer Anna Bensi, who was sentenced to two years in prison on October 1. Now, he himself risks becoming one of the country’s more than 1,300 political prisoners.

Ariel is a Christian; he accepted Jesus and made a profession of faith at the Marianao Evangelical League — the church where I was a member before going into exile — and later served as a pastor in the Assemblies of God denomination. Amidst the pressure she faces, Yulia confided in me: “Faith and trust in our Lord Jesus Christ remain as strong as they were at the beginning. In God we exist, live, and move.”

Ariel devoted himself to painting full-time, using his talent to put food on his family’s table. “He is self-taught,” Yulia tells me. “He has a gift.”

When he paints nature, colors explode across his canvases; they are a celebration. In them, God’s Creation proclaims His greatness, offering hope and joy.

Yet, some of his paintings of Cuba depict vintage or dilapidated cars, gloomy buildings, and chaotic crowds in the streets; there is a certain sadness in the palette he chooses to reflect his surroundings. These works portray a world shaped by man within a city frozen in time — a place devoid of hope, drifting by inertia, and held captive by the wickedness of its rulers.

The courage and moral clarity of men like Ariel restore dignity to the Republican Capitol — hijacked by socialist tyranny — and to the broken streets of Havana, now transformed into a Pompeii of salt. May freedom arrive in the footsteps and shouts of such men! In a cry of “Long live Christ the King!” from millions.