"They can either kill us, put us in jail or release them. We will never stop marching no matter what happens." - Laura Pollan
Two years later and the forces of repression still tremble before the memory of the 65 year old wife and mother. Watching her in the video below and one begins to understand the existential threat she represented to the totalitarians in Cuba.
She was a former school teacher turned human rights defender and international pro-democracy figure who courageously and nonviolently confronted Castro's half century old totalitarian dictatorship and paid for it with her life.
Laura Inés Pollán Toledo has not been forgotten and today across Cuba the political police organized acts of repudiation, closed streets, used loud speakers and detained over 120 Ladies in White across the island in an effort to drown out in a wave of repression activities in her memory.
The forces of repression failed.
They killed Laura but could not kill what she represents and now symbolizes. In 2010 she and the women's movement that she led, the Ladies in White forced the dictatorship to do the right thing and they used methods alien to the regime. It was the power of love and dignity backed up by courage and nonviolent discipline that forced one of the worse dictatorships on the planet to bend and release prisoners of conscience.
The Ladies in White continue their march for freedom and human rights and now also do it in memory of Laura. Love and dignity will always triumph over hatred and indecency.
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| Laura and the Ladies in White on the march in 2010 |
She was a former school teacher turned human rights defender and international pro-democracy figure who courageously and nonviolently confronted Castro's half century old totalitarian dictatorship and paid for it with her life.
Laura Inés Pollán Toledo has not been forgotten and today across Cuba the political police organized acts of repudiation, closed streets, used loud speakers and detained over 120 Ladies in White across the island in an effort to drown out in a wave of repression activities in her memory.
The forces of repression failed.
They killed Laura but could not kill what she represents and now symbolizes. In 2010 she and the women's movement that she led, the Ladies in White forced the dictatorship to do the right thing and they used methods alien to the regime. It was the power of love and dignity backed up by courage and nonviolent discipline that forced one of the worse dictatorships on the planet to bend and release prisoners of conscience.
The Ladies in White continue their march for freedom and human rights and now also do it in memory of Laura. Love and dignity will always triumph over hatred and indecency.
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