Berta Soler: ‘Ladies in White will continue to exist as long as there are still political prisoners in Cuba’

From our Bureau of Extremely Courageous Women with some assistance from our Bureau of Socialist Toleration, Compassion, and Social Justice

On the twentieth anniversary of the founding of the Ladies in White, their leader Berta Soler has promised to continue protesting the incarceration of Cuban dissidents, despite the unrelenting abuse to which she and her fellow Ladies are subjected Sunday after Sunday.

Unfortunately, the world’s major news agencies no longer pay attention to the Ladies, but they’re still out there, risking life and limb, trying to call attention to the human rights abuses of the hellish 65-year-old dictatorship that has destroyed Cuba.

Many of the Ladies in White are of African descent. Don’t expect any Wokenoids, the Marx Sisters, or the Black Lives Matter storm troopers to take an interest in the Ladies and their valiant work for GENUINE social justice.

Abridged and loosely translated from CubaNet

As 2023 ends, five Cuban dissidents remain imprisoned: Aymara Nieto Muñoz, Sissi Abascal Zamora, Sayli Navarro Álvarez, Tania Echevarría Menéndez and Jacqueline Heredia Morales. The five women have something in common: they are members of the Ladies in White movement, which this year celebrated two decades of creation.

The female opposition group has been the target of repression by the Cuban regime due to its peaceful work since its creation in 2003. According to Berta Soler Fernández, leader of the movement, told CubaNet, this year they have remembered two founding dates: March 30 and May 22nd.

Soler Fernández described the constant repression that many of the activists of the opposition movement suffer, on many occasions just for trying to get to mass every Sunday.

“They stop you, they can put you in a patrol car and take you to a place far from your house or near where they stop you. They put you inside the patrol car under the sun with all the windows closed (oven patrols), and after four or five hours they release you, when the mass is over,” said the leader of the Ladies in White.

She also takes many of the activists to the dungeons, where political police agents threaten to leave them in prison.

“And here in Havana, for example, in the case of María Cristina Labrada or in my case, they are taking us to the Police unit with common detainees. They keep us there for more than 15 hours and they release us at dawn,” said Soler Fernández.

For her part, Soler Fernández clarified that the Ladies in White “are going to continue coming out as long as there is a prisoner for political reasons; and they will continue to advocate for the freedom of those imprisoned.

“That is why we exist and will continue to exist. As long as there are political prisoners, there will be Ladies in White demanding, not asking, the Cuban regime for the freedom of all political prisoners, but also the freedom of the people of Cuba,” the opposition member finally assured.