It was another Sunday of violent repression in Cuba yesterday as the apartheid Castro regime sent out its State Security thugs and violent mobs to attack dissidents and Ladies in White. The peaceful protestors were attempting to attend church services as they do every Sunday. Reports from the island indicate 30 Ladies in White and dissidents were arrested. Many of them were violently beaten for trying to take part in their peaceful weekly Sunday protest march.
Diario de Cuba has the report (my translation):
Some 30 Ladies in White and activists arrested in Havana and Matanzas
Some 30 Ladies in White and human rights activists were arrested this Sunday in Havana and Matanzas as they tried to take part in another march of the #TodosMarchamos (We all march) campaign sponsored by the Forum for Rights and Liberties (ForoDyL).
Maylen Gonzalez Gonzalez told Diario de Cuba that in front of the women’s movement headquarters in Lawton, five women and three human rights activists were arrested. Among them the movement’s leader Berta Soler and Angel Moya, a former political prisoner from the group of 75.
“Today’s march was dedicated to Orlando Zapata Tamayo on the anniversary of his death as well as the pilots murdered in the shoot down of the Brothers to the Rescue planes,” said Gonzalez.
“They went out carrying pictures and protest signs and their arrest was extremely violent. They brought a bus and police, the mobs yelled their usual insults at the headquarters. They violently beat up those who went outside,” she said.
“We know that two women were not able to reach Lawton as they were intercepted on their way; others were not able to leave their residences due to police stationed outside their homes,” she added.
Separately, Leticia Ramos Herreria told Diario de Cuba that “in the Matanzas province, 21 Ladies in White were reported as arrested.” Another 11 women were able to “make it mass.”
According to Ramos, arrests took place in Colon, Cardenas, Jovellanos, Perico, and in the town of Carlos Rojas.
“This Sunday, apparently the repression did not last as many hours. The detentions did not exceed three hours. The women were released close to their homes,” added a Lady in White who was among those arrested that morning.
She explained that weeks earlier, “the detentions at the police stations lasted many more hours, they took statements and imposed fines, but today, none of that happened,” at least in Matanzas.
