Odyssey of Cuban matriarch Maydolis Leyva Portelles and her family: Jailed because they refused to mourn Fidel Castro's death

A cautionary tale started in 2016 that continues through today

Maydolis Leyva Portelles and her family targeted by secret police in Cuba

Communist hardliners do not forgive or forget. The death of Fidel Castro on November 25, 2016 plunged hard line Marxist Leninists into mourning for the Cuban tyrant, and was the case with Stalin and Mao, not mourning the passing of the dictator was a punishable offense.

 Maydolis Leyva Portelles and her three children were punished for not sufficiently lamenting the passing of the individual most responsible for turning Cuba into a communist dictatorship for the past 61 years.

Twin sisters Anairis and Adairis Miranda Leyva, their mom and their brother Fidel Manuel Batista Leyva jailed for leaving their home during the period of mourning for Fidel Castro were recognized as prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International in March 2017.

They had been jailed since November 27, 2016 for not having mourned the death of Fidel Castro. The three siblings were hospitalized following a hunger strike that began on March 7, 2017 and were conditionally released on April 3, 2017.   

However the harassment did not end, but has continued to the present day. 

Adairis Miranda Leyva has two children: Tahimí Rodríguez Miranda (age 14 ) and Alain Michel Rodríguez Miranda (age 12), that over the past three years have not been able to go to school out of fear for their physical security. Due to the beatings, Acts of Repudiation, offenses and threats carried out against them by angry mobs of communist teachers, parents and students.

On February 24, 2020, after they held a public protest on Holguín Boulevard, repression increased: they suffered severe beatings, arbitrary arrests, murder attempts, attempted police rape (against Ana Iris and Ada Iris), serious moral and political offenses. To make matters worse, the communist dictatorship seeks to jail them again on spurious charges.

On September 26, 2020, at 7:41 PM, mobs organized by the dictatorship, members of the violent rapid response groups led by secret police, began an Act of Repudiation against them. In this attack, they threw bricks at them, smashed their door and the window. The mob invaded their home, burned down their kitchen, and destroyed what little they owned. 

During the attack, in which more than a hundred people participated, the secret police led by Lt. Colonel Alejandro, head of the confrontation brigade in Holguín), as well as police officers were present to encourage the mob action sanctioned by the Castro regime.

Hoy, 3 de Octubre de 2020, mis dos hermanas Ana Iris y Ada Iris cumplen 31 años de edad. Mañana, 4 de Octubre de 2020, Tahimí cumplirá 14 años de edad.
¡Que Dios las Bendiga, Libere, Proteja y Prospere siempre junto a Alain Michel, Maydolis, Fidel Batista y Luna! pic.twitter.com/vZXpjHpnWs

— Ana Iris Miranda Leyva y Familia (@AnaIris72442501) October 3, 2020

They were only able to save themselves because they climbed onto a neighbor's roof; and at dawn escaped by going out through someone else's house. This happened to them, their dog and María Casado Ureña, a 72-year-old woman, was also physically assaulted and threatened by the mob for visiting them.

Now they are homeless and observing birthdays seeking refuge with good Samaritans who are in turn targeted by the dictatorship for granting them shelter.

Nearly four  years after they failed to mourn Fidel Castro's death this family is seeking asylum, and fear for their lives. This is how communism in practice deals with dissidents, and those who do not actively support the dictatorship in Havana.

Top 15 Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter 2015 blog entries

Tough year for Cuban freedom

These are the top 15 blog entries of the year in terms of visits arranged in chronological order. George Santayana understood the importance of remembering the past in order to avoid repeating the same mistakes. The first two blog entries turned conventional wisdom upside down reporting on the decline in trade during the Obama Administration and the brutal torture and murder of a Cuban American attorney visiting Havana, Cuba in January 2015. 

Swissleaks exposed the banking practices of the Cuban and Venezuelan regimes and how they have their own 1% living very well while the majority in their respective countries live in misery. 

The conventional wisdom views detente as something positive but the historical says different and that was explored on this blog. An example of how this approach is disastrous was seen in April in Panama with Cuban diplomats disrupting the Summit of the Americas and attacking dissidents in a public park and later organized acts of repudiation against them when they returned home to Cuba. 

Despite continuing bad acts the Obama administration  took Cuba off the list of state terror sponsors. On the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta this blog reflected on Cuba's Varela Project. Meanwhile both North Korea and Cuba made outrageous healthcare claims that were examined in this blog. This followed an examination of rising violence in Cuba in what appeared to be a correlation with U.S. outreach to the dictatorship while marginalizing and ignoring Cuban democrats that has generated a body count. 

In a presidential election year the Clinton record on Cuba was examined and found wanting. This blog also reported on the show trial of Leopoldo López Mendoza and the unjust verdict of guilt and sentence of 13 years and 9 months in prison. Cuban exiles protested against Raul Castro in New York City and against the Obama administration's Cuba policy in Washington DC. A soap opera of the Cuban music sensation Celia Cruz offered an opportunity to discuss how her music was censored in Cuba and she was banned by the dictatorship from returning. 

1. What the Associated Press left out of its story on Cuba Trade and the US Embargo

What Agribusiness and the Castro regime prefer you did not know: 1. How American agribusiness and members of Congress signed "advocacy contracts" in exchange for the purchase of exports and became lobbyists for the dictatorship. 2. How Castro dictatorship stopped making payments to trading partners of what they owed in order to buy billions in U.S. exports during the Bush years. 

Associated Press coverage of Cuba over the past few years has been a source of controversy with well founded claims of bias. On January 5, 2014 a new episode unfolded with the article by Michael Weissenstein "Figures show US-Cuba trade hit decade low last year." The first paragraph blames "long standing barriers to trade" but the second paragraph states: The statistics from the U.S.-Cuba Trade and Economic Council show that U.S. farmers sold slightly more than $253 million worth of food and agricultural products to Cuba in the first 10 months of 2014. If the last two months of the year reflect similar sales levels, 2014 could be the worst year for U.S. exports to Cuba since 2004. What is not mentioned in the article is that the peak years of the Castro regime purchasing U.S. food and agricultural products was during the Bush Administration. In August of 2008 the Cuban dictatorship said that the United States was its fifth leading trade partner. With the entrance of the Obama Administration in 2009 and its policy of loosening Bush era restrictions trade between the two countries has been consistently lower.

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/01/what-associated-press-left-out-of-its.html

Sunday, January 11, 2015

2. Cuban American attorney killed in Cuba last week while visiting family

Details still murky

Albert Romero killed in Cuba

Tampa Bay Times is reporting that Alberto Romero (age 39), a Tampa based marital and family law attorney, was killed in Cuba while visiting extended family last week either on Thursday night or Friday morning. [...] The victims were found after a friend of Cruz Navarro tried to communicate with him and would not respond to his calls. Shortly afterwards the owner of the home went to the room rented by Romero and found the crime scene. The two men were tied up, beaten, stabbed and in the case of the Cuban American atttorney one hand was severed according to the source. Martí Noticias obtained a copy of the death certificate.

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/01/cuban-american-attorney-killed-in-cuba.html

Tuesday, February 10, 2015

3. Communists from Cuba and Venezuela with Swiss bank accounts

How communists cultivate more poverty and inequality

 The regimes in Caracas and Havana speak of social justice and defending the poor, but in practice they are the opposite of what they claim. Dictators with absolute power who once and while are revealed for who they truly are: a rich and unaccountable minority plundering the riches of once great nations whose peoples are spiraling into deeper poverty and misery.

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/02/cuba-and-venezuela-communists-with.html

Friday, March 13, 2015

4. Lessons from Eastern Europe on Engagement: Poland and Romania

"I think detente had manifestly failed, and that the pursuit of it was encouraging Soviet expansion and rendering the world more dangerous, and especially rendering the Western world in greater peril." - Jeane Kirkpatrick, U.S. Ambassador to the UN for President Reagan

Ronald Reagan entered office on January 20, 1981 and on December 13, 1981 the communist regime in Poland had declared martial law and was cracking down on the Solidarity movement. 10,000 people were rounded up and about 100 died during martial law. Ronald Reagan in his Christmas Address on December 23, 1981 denounced the crackdown (beginning at 4 minutes into the above video) and outlined economic sanctions against Poland while demanding that the human rights of the Polish people be respected. 

Thursday, April 9, 2015

5. The Castro Regime's idea of dialogue: The monologue of the closed fist

If liberty means anything at all, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear. - George Orwell
 

Leticia Ramos and Augusto Monge attacked in Panama

Yesterday it was seen dramatically at Porra park in Panama City when a group of Cuban dissidents from the diaspora and the island sought to lay flowers before a bust of Jose Marti and were subjected to a violent act of repudiation by Castro regime state security. Carlos Alberto Montaner reported on twitter:  They have identified the ringleader of the attacks on Cuban democrats in Panama. It is Col. Alexis Frutos Weeden, head of Cuban intelligence in Venezuela. 

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/04/the-castro-regimes-idea-of-dialogue.html

Wednesday, April 15, 2015

6. State security organizes mobs to attack Cuban resistance leaders

 Update: State security agents repeatedly made death threats against Jorge Luís García Perez “Antunez” in reprisal for his trip to Panama and the Summit of the Americas

Jorge Luís García Perez “Antunez and Iván Fernández Depestre

ACT OF REPUDIATION ORDERED AGAINST JORGE LUÍS GARCÍA PÉREZ ANTUNEZ. STATE SECURITY OPERATION AND CASTRO MOBS SURROUND HIS HOME

Link to audio denouncing regime action (In Spanish): https://youtu.be/n_Ulli4Q0Bk

Placetas, Villa Clara April 14, 2015. Assembly of the Cuban Resistance. Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez", National Secretary of the National Resistance Front Orlando Zapata Tamayo denounces over telephone that Cuban State Security has given orders to the populace of Placetas, to do a violent act of repudiation in reprisal for his presence as a member of the Cuban resistance last week at the Summit of the Americas in Panama.
http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/04/state-security-organizes-mobs-to-attack.html 

Friday, May 29, 2015

7. Ten reasons that Cuba under the Castro regime should have remained on the list of terror sponsors

Cuba was listed until May 29, 2015

 The regime in Cuba has a long history of sponsoring terrorism and training terrorists that the Obama administration has sought to minimize and ignore in its drive to normalize relations with the Castro dictatorship. Despite evidence that the Castro regime is linked to drug trafficking and engaged in the smuggling of weapons to an outlaw regime (North Korea in July 15, 2013) and to terrorist guerrillas ( Colombia February 28, 2015) the Obama administration today removed Cuba from the list of state terror sponsors.
http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/05/top-ten-reasons-that-cuba-under-castro.html

Monday, June 15, 2015

8. The Varela Project: Cuba's Great Charter

To no one will we sell, to no one deny or delay right or justice. - Magna Carta,  June 15, 1215

Today the 800th anniversary of Magna Carta is being observed in the United Kingdom and it is important to look at societies where authoritarian or totalitarian dictatorships continue to systematically deny freedom and how citizens in those societies have appealed for change echoing elements of "The Great Charter." In Cuba, the Varela Project, under the dictatorship of the Castro brothers to date is the most serious challenge where more than 25,000 Cubans petitioned the regime to reform itself in 2002-2003.  This led to the dictatorship altering the constitution to prevent amendments that would reform the system, imprisoning scores of petition organizers in March of 2003, and on July 22, 2012 extrajudicially killing Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero Escalante of the Christian Liberation Movement who had led the initiative. This citizen's demand remains active and like the Magna Carta was not a single event but a process that is still underway.

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/06/the-varela-project-cubas-great-charter.html

Friday, July 3, 2015

9. Examining Cuba and North Korea healthcare claims

"Communist political violence flowed from a utopian vision of the future, from the great goals pursued, and from the intolerance the service of these ideals inspired, as well as from an intense attachment to power. The means had to be subordinated to historically unparalleled ends that require extraordinary measures." - Paul Hollander, The Distinctive Features of Repression in Communist States

Regimes in Cuba and North Korea are totalitarian allies

 Both Cuba and North Korea are totalitarian dictatorships that have made claims of great achievements in the area of healthcare over the course of the past month. On June 19, 2015 the regime in North Korea said that it had "created a wonder drug which not only cures AIDS, but also eradicates Ebola and cancer."  At the same time North Korea has approximately 10.2 million North Koreans currently facing famine. On June 30, 2015 the World Health Organization said that the regime in Cuba had "became the first country in the world to receive validation from WHO that it has eliminated mother-to-child transmission of HIV and syphilis." This is the same regime in Cuba that tried to cover up or under report dengue and cholera outbreaks jailing doctors and reporters who warned of the outbreaks at the time in order to preserve a false image of its healthcare system. 

 http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/07/examining-cuba-and-north-korea.html 

Wednesday, July 8, 2015

10. Policy paper shows correlation between US engagement and rising repression in Cuba: The Obama Administration’s Cuba Engagement Policy and Rising Repression

“The Cuban people deserve the support of the United States and of an entire region that has committed to promote and defend democracy through the Inter-American Democratic Charter.” – The White House December 17, 2014 

Sirley Ávila León: Holds state security responsible for May 2015 machete attack

Summary:

• Levels of violence and numbers of arbitrary detentions have grown exponentially during the 18 months of secret negotiations between the Castro regime and the Obama administration. 
• Human Rights defenders were victims of brutal, life threatening machete attacks in the same month that secret negotiations between the Obama administration and the Castro dictatorship started. 
• The December 17, 2014 announcement of normalized relations was surrounded by repression, violence and death. 
• There has been an explosion of arbitrary detentions in Cuba, jumping from an average of 550 per month to 742. 
• The Castro regime has been implicated in heightening repression against pro-democracy activists in Venezuela, including extrajudicial killings. 

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/07/policy-paper-shows-correlation-between.html

Thursday, July 30, 2015

11. Correcting the historical record: The Clintons and The Castro brothers

Why friends of a free Cuba should be protesting against the Clintons.

Clinton and Kerry: No friends of Cuban democracy activists

 Hillary Clinton is going to Florida International University tomorrow to make a foreign policy speech in which she will apparently call for the end of the embargo on the Castro dictatorship. What is surprising is that this is news because back in June 2014 in her book Hard Choices, Hillary Clinton wrote that she had been urging President Obama to end the embargo on Cuba. Unfortunately, when advocates of normalized relations in 2015 claim that the sanctions policy has been in place for 55 years and that diplomatic relations have been nonexistent they overlook some key facts that get in the way of their narrative. [...] Bill Clinton in 1994 initiated regular contacts between the U.S. and Cuban military that included joint military exercises at the Guantanamo Naval base. ( Despite his rhetoric George W. Bush continued the practice during his presidency.) Despite this improvement of relations the 1990s saw some of those brutal massacres of Cubans that are rightly remembered such as the July 13, 1994 "13 de Marzo" tugboat massacre and the February 24, 1996 Brothers to the Rescue shoot down. The shoot down involved two planes blown to bits over international airspace by Cuban MiGs killing three American citizens and a Cuban resident who were engaged in the search and rescue of Cuban rafters. Gerardo Hernandez, one of the Cuban spies freed by Obama on December 17, 2014, was serving a life sentence for conspiracy to commit murder for his role in these killings.  Jose Basulto, one of the survivors, who escaped in a third plane accuses the Clinton administration of complicity in the killings.

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/07/correcting-historical-record-clintons.html

Friday, August 14, 2015

12. The body count during the normalization of relations in Cuba

“Our Movement denounces the regime's attempt to impose a fraudulent change, i.e. change without rights and the inclusion of many interests in this change that sidesteps democracy and the sovereignty of the people of Cuba.” - Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, March 30, 2012

The United States Embassy in Havana

 Cuba is much more than the dictatorship that has oppressed Cubans for 56 years, but in its official dialogue the Obama State Department by excluding Cuban democrats from the official opening of the embassy today confuses the two. Worse yet, the snub to Cuban democrats arises out of a fear that the dictatorship's apparatchiks would not attend. Combine this with Admiral John Kirby, the State Department spokesman  threatening to physically remove Rosa Maria Paya, who had proper accreditation as a member of the press from the State Department press conference with Secretary Kerry and the Castro regime's foreign minister on July 20, 2015 makes the message crystal clear.

 http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/08/the-body-count-during-normalization-of.html

Thursday, September 10, 2015

13. Show trial in Venezuela sentences Leopoldo Lopez to 13 years and 9 months in prison

 All With Leopoldo!

Learned tonight that Leopoldo López Mendoza was sentenced to 13 years and 9 months in prison.The four student protesters charged alongside Lopez had all been released on probation. The show trial has concluded. The injustice continues. The struggle to free Leopoldo Lopez and the many others prisoners of conscience in Venezuela continues. Condemned by this judicial farce is the Maduro regime that now stands revealed as a dictatorship that imprisons its nonviolent, democratic opposition leaders. This also means that the South American country is a satellite of Cuba.

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/09/show-trial-in-venezuela-sentences.html

Tuesday, September 29, 2015

14. Why we are protesting Raul Castro in New York City

"There may be times when we are powerless to prevent injustice, but there must never be a time when we fail to protest." - Elie Wiesel, Nobel Lecture 1986

 

Protests on September 28th at the UN and Cuban Mission

On September 28, 2015 in New York City at the Cuban Mission to the United Nations and in front of the United Nations Cuban exiles gathered to protest Raul Castro. The question asked by many was why we were protesting? Below is an attempt to provide a succinct answer.


http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/09/why-we-are-protesting-raul-castro-in.html

Wednesday, October 14, 2015

15. Celebrating Celia Cruz and her decision to live and sing in freedom

How the Castro regime sought to censor and punish Celia Cruz for living in freedom

Celia Cruz: The Queen of Salsa

On October 21st the world will observe the 90th anniversary of the birth in Havana, Cuba of Úrsula Hilaria Celia de la Caridad Cruz Alfonso better known as Celia Cruz. Last night Telemundo aired the first of an 80 part - novela of the life of the woman who would become known as the Queen of Salsa and "La Guarachera de Cuba". The first episode is available online.  However in Cuba the Castro regime continues to ban the music of Celia Cruz from the radio airwaves. She is not alone. There are other banned Cuban musicians of great importance. The above censorship is widely known, but not as well known is that when the mother of Celia Cruz was dying the Cuban musical icon was blocked by Fidel Castro from returning to Cuba to say goodbye to her mom or attend her funeral afterwards.  This practice still goes on today with Cuban dissidents in the diaspora barred arbitrarily from seeing their loved ones by the Castro regime.

http://cubanexilequarter.blogspot.com/2015/10/celebrating-celia-cruz-and-her-decision.html 

State security organizes mobs to attack Cuban resistance leaders

 Update: State security agents repeatedly made death threats against Jorge Luís García Perez “Antunez” in reprisal for his trip to Panama and the Summit of the Americas

Jorge Luís García Perez “Antunez and Iván Fernández Depestre

ACT OF REPUDIATION ORDERED AGAINST JORGE LUÍS GARCÍA PÉREZ ANTUNEZ. STATE SECURITY OPERATION AND CASTRO MOBS SURROUND HIS HOME

Link to audio denouncing regime action (In Spanish): https://youtu.be/n_Ulli4Q0Bk

Placetas, Villa Clara April 14, 2015. Assembly of the Cuban Resistance. Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez", National Secretary of the National Resistance Front Orlando Zapata Tamayo denounces over telephone that Cuban State Security has given orders to the populace of Placetas, to do a violent act of repudiation in reprisal for his presence as a member of the Cuban resistance last week at the Summit of the Americas in Panama.

"It's a big crowd around my house in the 7ma del Sur, I’m with former political prisoner Ivan Fernandez Depestre and also alert the world that the son of my wife, Yedier Rodriguez and his girlfriend who are minors are in my house. Castro mobs in retaliation for the defeat that we gave them in Panama are preparing an act of repudiation and also to the journalist and Sakharov Laureate Guillermo Fariñas. In the city of Placetas they have closed all workplaces and schools under the threat that if they are not going to the repudiation act against Antúnez their wages will be suspended," said Antúnezto the Cuban Democratic Directorate.

The Assembly of the Cuban Resistance issues a call of alert to international human rights organizations and the free and democratic community of the world for the freedom of and physical integrity of Jorge Luis Garcia Perez Antúnez, former political prisoner Iván Fernández Depestre, as well as his wife’s son, Yedier Rodriguez and his girlfriend.

Original press release in Spanish http://www.directorio.org/comunicadosdeprensa/note.php?note_id=4405

Castro regime's unchanging ways and American pragmatism

 "Even a purely moral act that has no hope of any immediate and visible political effect can gradually and indirectly, over time, gain in political significance." - Václav Havel

Journalist Karen Caballero escorted out by Cuban state security

Last week the Castro regime took part in the Summit of the Americas, in what was supposed to be a gathering of democracies and turned it into a violent circus where civil society activists were threatened, harassed, slandered, libeled and physically assaulted. However it didn't end there when heads of state were allotted 8 minutes to speak, Raul Castro took 49 minutes.

To add insult to injury, an accredited journalist, Karen Caballero, anchor and correspondent for TV/Radio Martí after entering to attend a press conference with the Cuban foreign minister at the Summit of the Americas was expelled from the gathering by Cuban state security agents.  TV/Radio Marti is affiliated with Voice of America (VOA) and the U.S. government. Despite this the Voice of America Spanish website has remained silent on this incident of harassment, although it was reported on by CNN in Spanish on its website, and the U.S. president thanked Raul Castro for his "spirit of openness."

Yesterday, the President made his recommendation that Cuba be taken off the list of state sponsors of terrorism ignoring the clear and present danger that it represents. At the same time Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez", who had been attacked by state security agents in Panama last week found his home in Placetas, Cuba surrounded by state security and others told to go and engage in an act of repudiation at the activist's at home or face reprisals at work and school.

The White House is engaged in what Pat Buchanan describes as the tradition of ruthless American pragmatism. In the Forum 2000 Conference in 2009, Vaclav Havel called President Obama to task for engaging in that practice with the Dalai Lama:

I believe that when the new Laureate of the Nobel Peace Prize postpones receiving the Dalai Lama until after he has accomplished his visit to China, he makes a small compromise, a compromise which actually has some logic to it. However, there arises a question as to whether those large, serious compromises do not have their origin and roots in precisely these tiny and very often more or less logical compromises.

The devil is in the details. Many who advocate for a principled engagement with the regime are troubled by the ruthless pragmatism of the Obama administration and how it could set back both US national interests and the freedom aspirations of the Cubans on the island. Human rights and norms of civility need to be upheld if they are to survive.

Update on March 18, 2013 attack on Ladies in White

Taken from Pedazos de la Isla

State organized mobs assault the Ladies in White

Stoning against the Ladies in White, neighbors come out in their defense

On the night of March 18th, the Cuban political police organized a mob of more than 200 people to attack a group of 50 Ladies in White in Palma Soriano who were holding their monthly meeting, dedicating it to the 10th anniversary of the Black Spring crackdown when 75 dissidents were arrested and sentenced to prison.  These actions resulted in the hospitalization of one of the Ladies in White and the violent arrests of various neighbors who came out in their defense.

Belkis Cantillo, the representative of the Ladies in White in the province of Santiago de Cuba, was present and explained to this blog that the meeting took place without any incidents, but “at around 4 PM, when we were going to leave the house, we noticed that there were mobs on each corner.  It was then that act of repudiation began“.

Cantillo estimated that there were about 200 people in the acts of repudiation, many of them drunkards, and all of them responding to the orders of the political police.  Some of the agents who were at the forefront of the mobs were Edgar, Norberto, Yunier, Ernesto, Rodolfo and Agustin (the latter a chief of the Confrontation Unit in Santiago de Cuba), although the activist points out that these are just code names, seeing as the agents never use their actual names.

In addition, there were underage students in the mob.  They were taken there by their teachers.
“The teachers would tell the kids to scream insults at us like ‘worms‘”, said Cantillo, “but the majority of the parents showed up, angry, and punished their children and took them away from there.  They also confronted and protested against the teachers for taking them there without their authorization“.

The mobs remained outside of the home of Denia Hernandez and started to throw rocks against the walls, windows and roof.  There were also underage children inside- 3,8,12, and 15 years old.  The eldest being Martha Beatriz Ferrer, daughter of Belkis and leading dissident Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia.

“These kids were terrorized.  All they could hear were the rocks crashing against the walls.  It felt like it was raining rocks, it wouldn’t come to an end“, recounts Belkis, “And the political police was just there, controlling those mobs, encouraging them“.

At one point, one of the rocks landed inside the house of a neighbor.  Clearly bothered, he came out to defend the women.  He wasn’t the only one.

“This man came out to defend us.  He told the police officers to stop the violence“, said the Lady in White, “and many other people came out to defend us- both men and women.  In fact, there were 6 women (neighbors) who stood up for us.  They started to shout at the mobs, asking why they were throwing rocks at us because we were only defending our rights”.

The result of the displays of solidarity was the beating and arrest of the 6 women at the hands of the political police.  Each of them were taken away to an undisclosed location.  Two of them were identified on Jose Daniel Ferrer’s Twitter account (@jdanielferrer) as Jessica Hernández and Maricela Chea.

Meanwhile, the Lady in White Miraida Martin was physically assaulted by the mobs when she stepped out of the house.  The aggression was so intense that she had to be urgently rushed to the clinic of Palma Soriano, where they had to give her oxygen, according to another tweet by Ferrer Garcia, which also detailed that she was in “a very delicate state of health“.

The home of Denia Hernandez remained under police vigilance long after the mobs began to disperse at around 9 PM.  It remained that way all night long.

Belkis Cantillo said that despite the fact that they were very violent moments, the Ladies in White were not afraid, although they are “very worried about the women who defended us and were assaulted.  They are still detained and were very beaten up, being held in an undisclosed location“.

Her husband and UNPACU leader, Jose Daniel Ferrer, added on Twitter that the 6 women demonstrated a high level of bravery and expressed that “when everyone who desires a better future does the same as Jessica, Maricela, and the rest of the neighbors, the abuses, the hunger, and the misery will come to an end”.


For more information from Cuba, contact: Belkis Cantillo- Cell Phone: +58-323-612

Cuba's Black Spring Ten Years Later: Ladies in White brutally attacked

URGENT!!! Victims of police and Castroite brigades violence need voices of solidarity. - Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, March 18, 2013 at 6:04pm over twitter

Lady in White Marina Montes Piñón beaten with blunt object in December 2012

Ten years ago, Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia was being threatened with a death sentence for his role as one of the organizers of the Varela Project, a citizen initiative to reform the Cuban system and bring it into line with international human rights standards. Today, ten years later, on March 18, 2013 he is calling for solidarity on behalf of a group of Cuban women beaten up by Castroite rapid response brigades and the political police in the interior of the island.

The worse repression is not in Havana, but in the interior of the island in places like Palma Soriano in the east of Cuba in the province of Santiago far away from the prying eyes of the diplomatic corps and international media.

Today rock throwing mobs organized by state security assaulted the home of Lady in White, Denia Fernandez Rey. What follows below is a translation of the tweets posted by Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, Robert J. Guerra of Hablemos Press, Angel Moya Acosta and the Ladies in White in real time as the attack unfolded and the aftermath.

The tweets began at 4:41pm on March 18, 2013 with Jose Daniel Ferrer reporting: Palma Soriano. Act of repudiation against fifty Ladies in White commemorating the tenth anniversary of the Black Spring. This was followed immediately by another offering that for more information on the act of repudiation against the Ladies in White to call +5358323612 and speak with Belkis Cantillo present at the home under assault.

At 5:14pm Jose Daniel tweeted that the violence was escalating: "Rapid Response Brigades attack the home of Denia Fernández, where there are five children, with stones." Three minutes later Robert J. Guerra of Hablemos Press reports that there is an "act of repudiation" underway at the "home of Lady in White Denia Fernandez in Palma Soriano, Santiago de Cuba" after the women "holding literary tea."

At 5:48pm the official Ladies in White twitter account confirms that the act of repudiation is underway and that their representative Belkis Cantillo is present at the home under siege.  

At 5:50pm Robert J. Guerra of Hablemos Press reports "Ladies in White beat up in Palma Soriano, Santiago de Cuba. Two women hospitalized for receiving blows to the head." 

Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera is a Victim of repeated assaults

The blows to the head are not accidental but a systematic targeting of certain activists. There are other recent examples and one that needs to be mentiones is the case of Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, she is the president of the Rosa Parks Women's Movement for Civil Rights. On International Women's Day 2013 in Cuba a woman was spitting up blood due to a beating administered to her by a male state security agent on the morning of March 7, 2013 for a nonviolent demonstration she had participated in. The attack was so brutal that they knocked her out and she had to be taken to a hospital. When she finally regained consciousness, regime agents kicked her out of the hospital. This was not the first time that she had been the object of such an attack by an official of the Cuban government. 

At 6:02pm Jose Daniel confirms that the "Ladies in White of Altamira have been battered" and that the "political police have detained the women." He reports one minute later that one of the women has been beaten into unconsciousness.

At 6:44pm Angel Juan Moya Acosta, former prisoners of conscience and husband of Ladies in White spokeswoman Berta Soler - who was not allowed to travel with his wife out of Cuba - reports: "Police brutality and mass arrests against Ladies in White in Palma Soriano, mounted on buses and disappeared."

At 8:43pm Jose Daniel tweets "Communist Brigades beat and police arrest six women for expressing outrage at the violence against the Ladies in White. He identifies two of the six women detained as "Jessica Hernández, and Maricela Chea." 

Jose Daniel informs a moment later that "Lady in White and UNPACU activist Miraida Martin is at a local Polyclinic being given oxygen following police violence" and that the Doctor attending her "does not authorize transferring Miraida to Santiago de Cuba because she is in a very fragile state." But at 8:47pm he reports that Due to "political police pressure Miraida is discharged still feeling very bad," and is "driven to Santiago." 

This is the same tactic that has been used against other women who dare to dissent in totalitarian Cuba and was most recently witnessed in the case of Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera.

The international mainstream news media in Cuba have not reported on these attacks and the UN has organized activities on the status of women in Cuba and failed to even mention the violence visited upon Cuban dissidents who happen to be women.

Lady in White Marina Montes Piñón

 Human rights defenders the world over, understand a very basic equation that holds true everywhere: Silence = Death but there is another equation that is implicitly understood but rarely voiced Constructive Noise = Life. Not just any noise but constructive noise that seeks out the facts and attempts to ascertain the truth of a situation and report it to others.

Due to repeated beatings Yris has developed a cyst

 The images posted here are not of the attacks on March 18. Those have not been available yet, but these are photos of other Cuban women that for their dissent were physically brutalized. The dictatorship attacks women in Cuba because it fears their power and courage. It is for that reason that ten years later on the anniversary of the Black Cuban Spring the forces of repression in the island are mobilized.

Scenes from the Sunday crackdown in Palma Soriano, Cuba

G2 agents tell detainees that actions against opposition activists in Palma were ordered by Raul Castro. - Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, on twitter on August 30, 2011

Members of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) in Eastern Cuba with signs that read "No more tyrants", "Murderers - Beatings - No" and "Down with Terror" photo from Luis Enrique Ferrer's facebook page.

Update: Amnesty International urgent action for dissidents arrested in Cuba.

Over the past weekend the dictatorship in Cuba carried out repressive actions in Eastern Cuba and courageous Cubans responded by demonstrating against the violence. This stand led to them also becoming targets of regime violence as the videos below demonstrate.



Most of the international coverage has focused on the brutal assault on the Ladies in White earlier in the day but there was more and now there is video of what happened at one of the home's were a demonstration took place at the home of Marino Antomarchi Rivero on Sunday, August 28, 2011. CNN reported on the context in which events unfolded:

During the past five weekends, the government has strongly repressed peaceful protests in several eastern cities, said Elizardo Sanchez, the head of the island's unofficial Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation. In at least one case, in the town of Palma Soriano, forces used gas -- either pepper spray or tear gas -- against one family, Sanchez said.

[...]

In one of the most recent incidents, on Sunday morning, a group of female dissidents were beaten and detained as they headed to Mass at the Palma Soriano's cathedral, Sanchez said. In protest of this act, two dissident groups declared they would hold closed-door vigils in certain homes, he said.

On Sunday evening, one of the homes was raided by riot police, Sanchez said. The government forces mistreated the 30 people at the home and destroyed many of the home's furnishings, he said.

Now Antomarchi Rivero had already been detained two days before but opposition activists on Sunday were gathered in his home when it was assaulted twice by state security and riot troops equipped with shields, rifles and tear gas who beat and detained 27 activists. During the second assault cameras and cell phones were seized and a number of images and videos were lost but not all. Video footage is from the UNPACU youtube account and offers sounds and images from Sunday. Including the after effects of a gaseous substance launched into Antomarchi's home by regime agents.



Over twitter Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia on his account, @jdanielferrer , over the course of a few tweets listed the names of the 27 detained activists at Antomarchi's home on Sunday: Bismar Mustelier Galan, Miguel Rafael Cabrera Montoya, Dany Lopez de Moya, Alexander Cala Reyes, Nibardo Amelo Ramirez, Osmanis Cespedes Napoles, Sergio Lescay Despaigne, Alexander Colon Fernandez, Alexeis Aguilsabal Rodriguez, Julio Cobas Rivero, Jose Enrique Martinez Ferrer, Ruben Adrober de Armas, Juan Carlos Figueroa Cala, Jose Antonio Elegica Zulueta, Roberto de la Rosa Estrada, Antonio Maso Cespedes,Angel lino Isaac Luna, Armando Sanchez la O, Reimundo Lopez Landazuri, Vitor Campa Almanares, Rolando Humberto Gonzalez Rodriguez, Rosney Vejerano Silo, Angel Luis Campa Almenares, Alexis Yancoy Cuan Jerez, Misael Valdes Vegas, Bismar Alvarez Arias and Ezequiel Pulido Pacheco.

"These are the names of our detained brothers and sisters" concluded Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia. He then went on to add that "Marino Antomarchi Rivero and Jorge Cervantes Garcia who were detained since Friday. The detention of activist Guillermo Cobas Reyes was captured on video.



On Tuesday, August 30, 2011 both Marino Antomarchi Rivero and Jorge Cervantes Garcia were released but learned of three other detainees of the Campa family. That means that the total number of activists still in detention as of Wednesday, September 1, 2011 in Palma Soriano is 30. According to Jose Daniel, the majority of the detainees are being held at the Versalles Unit. He ventures that those still detained have not been released to give time for their wounds to heal to avoid having them documented.

Jose Daniel over twitter listed those worse wounded over the weekend by the riot police: Miguel Rafael Cabrera Montoya, Alexeis Aguirresabal Rodriguez, Juan Carlos Figueroa Cala, Angel Lino Campa Almenares, Reimundo Lopez Landazuri and Angel Lino Isaac Luna. The list concluded with those hurt with injuries to the head: Ruben Adrober de Armas,Victor Campa Almenares and Miguel Cabrera Montoya.

One week ago, Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia together with other opposition activists who desire to achieve democracy in Cuba, founded the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) that has as its principal objective the massive growth of the nonviolent struggle for democracy on the island. UNPACU describes itself as nonviolent but not passive and backed up their words with action.

Thanks to a combination of social media, video technology, courageous and imaginative activists the brutal practices of the regime in Cuba are being exposed to the world. The Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) in the space of a week has generated some of these images.

Castro Regime Rent-a-Mob attacks Sara Marta Fonseca and her family

The above video demonstrates part of a rent-a-mob attack organized by state security agents of the dictatorship in Cuba to terrorize and assault Sara Marta Fonseca Quevedo and her family on April 18, 2011 at her home in Río Verde, Boyeros in Havana, Cuba according to Hablemos Press.

Acts of Repudiation from Mariel 1980 through International Human Rights Day 2009: Government Run and Organized Operations

Havana 1980 "Mariel"

Havana 2009 "Human Rights Day"

"Tolerance and human rights require each other." - Simon Wiesenthal

The sad truth is that most evil is done by people who never make up their minds to be either good or evil." - Hannah Arendt




It is understandable at a time when newspapers are in crisis and suffering cutbacks that professionals could get a story wrong, but the coverage of the attacks against the Ladies in White and other dissidents on International Human Rights Day save some notable exceptions swallowed the regime line of "pro-government mobs and government supporters" that in reality does not exist without even a question. The history of the creation and development of "acts of repudiation" has been well documented.

Acts of repudiation were first seen in 1980 during the Mariel crisis when Cubans who simply wanted to leave the country were brutally assaulted and forty lost their lives in lynchings. A refugee at the time of Mariel Mirta Ojito, now a journalist and author, described what she had seen and experienced in an opinion piece for the New York Times:

Mariel marked the first time socialist Cuba turned against itself. Thegovernment staged riots called actos de repudio -- street rallies inwhich neighbors turned against neighbors, harassing and tormenting those who wanted to leave the country. The victims were often pelted with rocks, tomatoes and eggs. Windows were shattered. Doors were knocked down. Some people were killed, dragged through the streets as trophies to intolerance and hate. Sometimes people trapped inside their homes chose to kill themselves rather than face their tormentors.

Both Amnesty International (AI) and the Office of the High Commissioner for the UN Human Rights Commission recognized that the individuals taking part in the acts of repudiation are "organized by
the authorities." AI has defined this form of state sponsored intimidation as follows:

Acts of repudiation [Actos de repudio] these are meetings or demonstrations organized by government officials or mass organizations supporting the government at which the person or persons concerned are
subjected to criticism and abuse, sometimes physical, because of their so-called counter-revolutionary views or activities.

The Cuban government is not static. Repression and the tactics change and evolve over time with one aim maintaining absolute power. When Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union began to transition to democracy in the late 1980s culminating in the peaceful dissolution of the USSR in 1991 the dictatorship in Cuba responded through a number of different initiatives one of them was to further refine "acts of repudiation" with the creation of the Brigadas de Respuesta Rápida "Rapid Response Brigades" to prepare for potential unrest and stepped-up dissident activity under the direction of the MININT (Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior). According to AI the:

Rapid Response Brigades, [Brigadas de Respuesta Rápida] were set up in 1991 to defend the country, the Revolution and socialism in all circumstances, by confronting and liquidating any sign of counter-revolution or crime and were subsequently involved in numerous violent confrontations with dissidents.

These are not spontaneous "pro-government mobs" but individuals transported by the dictatorship and instructed to attack those who dissent from the government line as was seen on International Human Rights Day where the violence was surgically directed against women standing up for their husbands who are Amnesty International prisoners of conscience and demonstrators and observers at a second demonstration. These individuals are not neighbors or supporters of the government who spontaneously appear to counter the demonstration. They are part of a “unified system of vigilance and protection (SUVP)” that comprise members of Committees in Defense of the Revolution (CDRs), mass organizations, and in some cases taken from their workplaces and obligated to participate to keep their jobs and are organized and directed by Cuban State Security. According to Human Rights Watch the Cuban government "employs so-called repudiation meetings (mitines de repudio), or acts of repudiation, to humiliate and intimidate dissidents publicly, sometimes violently." A more detailed description emerges in a 1998 report by Douglas Payne:

Their principle mission is to carry out acts of repudiation, which entail violent mob actions against dissidents or suspected dissidents, their homes, and any public demonstration of dissent. The mobs can involve up to hundreds of people who wield chains, bats and lengths of pipe. They shout slogans and threats, throw rocks and other crude missiles, deface homes with graffiti and otherwise damage property. The mobs are frequently invasive, breaking down doors and windows to carry out physical attacks against the occupants.

The participants in these neo-fascist attacks are probably taking part in this violent propaganda exercise in the Cuban dictatorship's version of Orwell's 2 minutes hate to avoid being on the receiving end of such an action themselves. For example during an act of repudiation on August 24, 2005 against Bertha Antunez the mob stopped the action when Bertha began to play Willy Chirino's "Ya Viene Llegando" and began to dance in the street. These are not regime supporters driven into an ideological frenzy to attack dissidents. They are people, in many cases brought by bus often times from work, and obligated by the government to attack other Cubans. It is the height of cowardice both for the Cuban government and the individuals taking part in the attacks and it is not a sign of regime strength but of fear that they will lose control.