Three days after her arrest, the whereabouts of Cuban Dissident Berta Soler still unknown

From our Bureau of Socialist Tolerance, Compassion, and Social Justice

Berta Soler gets arrested very often, simply for trying to go to church on Sunday. Normally, she is allowed to return home the next day. This arrest is different. Three days have passed and no one knows where she has been taken. Naturally, all who care about her are very worried. In Castrogonia, those who simply “disappear” after an arrest are subjected to all sorts of abuse before they are charged with a major crime and given a long prison sentence.

Loosely translated from ADN Cuba

The leader of the Ladies in White, Berta Soler, has been missing for three days following a violent arrest this past Sunday, November 10, reported her husband, opposition member and former political prisoner Ángel Moya.

According to Moya, the opposition leader was detained by paramilitary forces around midday in a public area in Lawton, Havana.

During the arrest, Soler shouted slogans like “Freedom for Cuban political prisoners” and “Down with Díaz-Canel.”

As of now, nearly 72 hours later, the whereabouts of the Ladies in White leader remain unknown.

Images shared by Moya clearly show the violence with which the opposition figure was arrested by several female Cuban regime enforcers dressed in civilian clothes.

Repressive actions like this one against Berta Soler and over a dozen Ladies in White have been occurring for more than 100 weeks, as they attempt to attend church on Sundays to pray for the release of political prisoners.

According to the organization Cubalex, these extended detentions of Soler qualify as enforced disappearances under the International Convention for the Protection of All Persons from Enforced Disappearance.

Article 2 of the Convention defines enforced disappearance as the deprivation of liberty by state agents or individuals acting with state authorization, followed by a refusal to acknowledge this deprivation or the concealment of the person’s whereabouts, placing them outside the protection of the law. Additionally, Article 17 establishes that no one should be subjected to secret detention, and any person deprived of liberty must be held in an officially recognized and supervised place, with their family informed of their location.

During an arrest in September, when the Ladies in White leader was missing, Moya called the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) to report his wife’s disappearance, only to be denied any record of her detention.

In previous incidents following her release, Soler has been known to have been held in a cell at the Cotorro police station in deplorable conditions. She was not allowed to have her Bible, the mattresses were infested with bedbugs, and water was provided only at the discretion of the jailer.

In addition to their leader, other Ladies in White suffered repression this Sunday.

In Perico, Matanzas, Sonia Álvarez Campillo was detained and taken to the local police station before being released with a fine of 150 Cuban pesos.

Asunción Carrillo, Caridad Burunate, Maritza Acosta, Yudaxis Pérez, and Mayra García were also arrested in Colón.

The opposition movement Ladies in White marked its 21st anniversary on March 30 of this year. Founded in 2003, it brings together wives and other family members of Cuban political prisoners. In 2005, they received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, awarded by the European Parliament.