Sunflower Uprising?: Cuban dissidents announce call for nonviolent protests on Lady of Charity feast day

"Nonviolence is a powerful and just weapon. Indeed, it is a weapon unique in history, which cuts without wounding and ennobles the man who wields it." - Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., Nobel Prize acceptance speech, Stockholm, Sweden, 1964

 September 8th is the feast day for Our Lady of Charity, known affectionately as "Cachita", and she unites Cubans together both inside and outside of the island. This year it falls on a Tuesday. She is also a touch stone of Cuban identity. Catholics take sunflowers to the shrine to Our Lady of Charity which is located in Santiago de Cuba. 

September 8th is also the 32nd anniversary of the founding of the Christian Liberation Movement, whose leader Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, and youth leader Harold Cepero Escalante, were extrajudicially executed by Castro's secret police on July 22, 2012.

 Like Oswaldo and Harold, the founding leader of this movement, Laura Inés Pollán Toledo , died under suspicious circumstances in 2011.

Cuban dissident Yosvany Arostegui Armenteros died on August 7, 2020 in Cuba while in police custody following a 40 day hunger strike. He had been jailed on false charges in the Kilo 8 prison of Camagüey. His body was quickly cremated by the dictatorship without his families consent.  

Yosvany Arostegui Armenteros

Prisoner of conscience Silverio Portal Contreras, former activist with the Ladies in White, is serving a 4-year sentence for "contempt" and "public disorder." He was arrested on the June 20, 2016 in Havana after shouting “Down Fidel Castro, down Raúl...” Regime agents were upset because according to them, "the behavior of the accused is particularly offensive because it took place in a touristic area."  

Prisoner of conscience Silverio Portal Contreras

According to Silverio’s wife, before his arrest he had campaigned against the collapse of dilapidated buildings in Havana. Silverio was recognized as a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International on August 26, 2019. He was beaten by prison officials in mid-May 2020 and lost sight in one eye. Since then his health has worsened and he has lost sight in the second eye. Activists are circulating a petition for his freedom.

The initiative solidarity between brothers continues to demand that the shipment of humanitarian assistance detained by the dictatorship be released, and call for participants in the sunflower uprising to join in this demand.

These are some of the reasons why on September 8th brave souls will be protesting in Cuba to reject repression and to demonstrate their solidarity with the Ladies in White, who are regularly assaulted for nonviolently gathering on Sundays.

 It is also why the secret police are working over time to shutdown the protests before they start with preemptive arrests and sunflowers have disappeared in Havana.

It is all the more reason why people of good will should denounce the oldest and most ruthless dictatorship in the Western hemisphere and go to the street on September 8th with a sunflower in hand and love for liberty in their hearts. 

In Washington DC activists will be gathering in front of the Cuban Embassy at 11:00am.