Malleza is a member of Ladies in White,[1] an opposition movement in Cuba consisting of wives and other female relatives of jailed political prisoners.
She and her husband were holding a banner reading "Stop hunger, misery and poverty in Cuba" in Havana's Fraternity Park.
[6] On 13 January 2012, US Representatives Ileana Ros-Lehtinen, Mario Díaz-Balart, Albio Sires, and David Rivera issued a bipartisan statement urging the prisoners' release, calling their detention "appalling and unjust".
[7] US Senators Marco Rubio and Robert Menendez also issued a statement calling for their release and condemning the "unrelenting tyranny" of "the Castro brothers".
[9] In 2012, she was a finalist for the Front Line Award for Human Rights Defenders at Risk, which ultimately went to Syrian blogger Razan Ghazzawi.