Twenty years ago brave Cuban women took the name Ladies in White.

Today four Ladies in White are in prison for demanding freedom for political prisoners and respect for human rights.

Ladies in White Tania Echevarría, Saylí Navarro, Sissi Abascal & Aymara Nieto jailed.

 

May 22, 2023 marks the day twenty years  ago when a group of brave Cuban women took the name the Ladies in White.  

They first came together on March 30, 2003 in the aftermath of a major crackdown that began on March 18, 2003, and with political show trials underway targeting their loved ones. 

Claudia Márquez (L) , Blanca Reyes (center) y Miriam Leiva (Rt), on 4/7/03 (Martí Noticias)

These courageous women carried out marches demanding the freedom of all prisoners of conscience and recognition of international human rights standards. 

Their objective was to see an end to prisoners of conscience in Cuba. 

Recognizing their struggle, the European Parliament awarded the Ladies in White the Sakharov Prize in 2005.

They've paid a high price for this stand. Movement leader Laura Pollán may have paid the highest price.  

Laura Pollán, February 13, 1948 - October 14, 2011

Mary O'Grady in The Wall Street Journal on October 24, 2011 reported that Pollán instead of disbanding sought to expand "the movement across the country and promised to convert it to a human rights organization open to all women. Speaking from the Guanajay prison as her condition was deteriorating, jailed former Cuban counterintelligence officer Ernesto Borges Pérez told the Hablemos Press that making public those objectives likely sealed her fate." Laura Pollán died on October 14, 2011 and was cremated shortly afterwards.

Twenty years later, and the Ladies in White continue to be subjected to brutal repression, and four women of this movement are now jailed in Cuba for calling for the release of political prisoners, and nonviolently defending human rights.

• On April 14, 2022, Ms.Tania Echevarría Menéndez was sentenced to six years in prison for crimes of public disorder and contempt. 
• On April 18, 2022, Ms. Sayli Navarro Alvarez began serving an eight-year sentence for crimes of public disorder, contempt, and assault related to her participation in the July 11 protests.
• Ms. Sissi Abascal Zamora was sentenced to six years in prison for participating in the 11J protests in the town of Carlos Rojas, in the municipality of Jovellanos, in the province of Matanzas. The 23-year-old activist and member of the Party for Democracy Pedro Luis Boitel has ten business days to appeal. Reports are that a bus full of women dressed as civilians arrived where Sissi was peacefully demonstrating with others on July 11, 2021, and proceeded to beat her and others up, and a bottle was broken over Ms. Abascal Zamora's head requiring that she receive stitches.
  
• Mrs. Aymara Nieto Muñoz served four years in prison for her activism in the Ladies in White and when released officials created a new case against her and sentenced her to five years and four months in prison. This was in retaliation for not having agreed with State Security to leave the country with her family.

The current elected leader of the Ladies in White in Cuba is Berta Soler Fernandez.

Artists have celebrated them over the years, and their work endures. Mike Porcel in 2005 composed the song "Damas de Blanco" for a documentary about the Ladies in White.

In 2011, following Laura Pollán's death, Amaury Gutierrez composed the song "Laura", and in 2013 played it for Berta Soler and other Ladies in White at Our Lady of Charity when she visited Miami.

Today, 20 years later, we remember their courageous example, and the need to follow their lead both inside and outside of Cuba. 

Freedom for Tania, Sayli, Sissi, Aymara, and the over 1,000 other prisoners of conscience in Cuba.

Laura Pollán at 75 - Remembering the Cuban dissident leader's legacy. Global rise in number of political prisoners with Belarus and Cuba in the lead. Cuba and Iran undermining Peru

They can either kill us, put us in jail or release them. We will never stop marching no matter what happens." - Laura Inés Pollán Toledo (2010)

Laura Inés Pollán Toledo, February 13, 1948 - October 14, 2011

Earlier version published as a CubaBrief 

Laura Inés Pollán Toledo, was born 75 years ago on February 13, 1948. She had been a school teacher, before her husband,  Héctor Fernando Maseda Gutiérrez, was jailed for his independent journalism in 2003 along with more than 75 other civil society members. Amnesty International recognized them as prisoners of conscience.

Claudia Márquez (izq) , Blanca Reyes (centro) y Miriam Leiva (der), al salir el 7 de abril de 2003 del Tribunal Provincial de La Habana tras conocer las sentencias dictadas contra sus respectivos esposos (Foto: Radio Televisión Martí)

This drove her break with the regime, and the formation of a dissident movement that marked a before and after in Cuban history. Claudia Márquez (izq) , Blanca Reyes (centro) y Miriam Leiva, who had been long time activists, and also had their husbands jailed were founding leaders in the new movement.

Laura reached out to the wives, mothers, sisters, and daughters of the 75 prisoners of conscience jailed in March 2003, which included her husband and they carried out a sustained nonviolent campaign that after eight years obtained the freedom of their loved ones. The first group was released in November 2010, and the last of the group of 75 were freed in March 2011.

Laura was greatly admired both inside and outside of Cuba for founding the Ladies in White movement after the Black Cuban Spring of 2003. She, and the group of women she led, nonviolently challenged the Castro regime in the streets of Havana initially, and eventually across the island.

She did not disband the Ladies in White when her husband returned home in February 2011. Laura recognized that the laws had not changed, that prisoners of conscience remained behind bars.

Laura Pollán and Héctor Maseda reunited in February 2011

Mary O'Grady in The Wall Street Journal on October 24, 2011 reported that Pollán instead of disbanding sought to expand "the movement across the country and promised to convert it to a human rights organization open to all women. Speaking from the Guanajay prison as her condition was deteriorating, jailed former Cuban counterintelligence officer Ernesto Borges Pérez told the Hablemos Press that making public those objectives likely sealed her fate." Laura Pollán died on October 14, 2011 and was cremated shortly afterwards.

Following her death, her husband Héctor Fernando Maseda mourned and through tears observed that "the toll on our private lives has been that after eight years of forced separation, we didn't even get eight months together. So I had one month of happiness for every year of separation."

 

Héctor Fernando Maseda marches with the Ladies in White following Laura's death in October 2011

Dr. Oscar Elías Biscet MD, who was a first degree medical specialist in internal medicine, before being fired from his post by the government for his dissident views, examined the circumstances surrounding the death of  Laura Pollán and wrote an analysis in November 2011 titled "A MEDICAL ANALYSIS OF LAURA POLLAN'S PAINFUL, TRAGIC AND UNNECESSARY DEATH." He concluded that " There is concrete evidence that the closest relatives, friends and dissidents expressed suspicions about a possible assassination by the communist regime's political police. Now, what has been proven over and over again is the stubborn nature of the regime at this sad, tragic and unnecessary death."

U.S. journalist Tracey Eaton interviewed Laura's widower Héctor Maseda on Dec. 15, 2011, about three months after her death, and he held the Castro regime responsible for her death, but admitted that he did not have the evidence to back up his allegation.

Twelve years later, and the wisdom of her analysis is reflected in over a thousand prisoners of conscience, and a dictatorship that changed the penal code to increase punishments for exercising freedom of expression.

Belarus, Cuba, and Vietnam have jailed thousands of prisoners of conscience in recent years.

The Ladies in White continue to be subjected to brutal repression, and four women of this movement are today jailed in Cuba for calling for the release of political prisoners, and nonviolently defending human rights.

Ladies in White Tania Echevarría, Saylí Navarro, Sissi Abascal and Aymara Nieto jailed.

 On April 14, 2022, Ms.Tania Echevarría Menéndez was sentenced to six years in prison for crimes of public disorder and contempt.

On April 18, 2022, Ms. Sayli Navarro Alvares began serving an eight-year sentence for crimes of public disorder, contempt, and assault related to her participation in the July 11 protests.

 

Ms. Sissi Abascal Zamora was sentenced to six years in prison for participating in the 11J protests in the town of Carlos Rojas, in the municipality of Jovellanos, in the province of Matanzas. The 23-year-old activist and member of the Party for Democracy Pedro Luis Boitel has ten business days to appeal. Reports are that a bus full of women dressed as civilians arrived where Sissi was peacefully demonstrating with others on July 11, 2021, and proceeded to beat her and others up, and a bottle was broken over Ms. Abascal Zamora's head requiring that she receive stitches.

Mrs. Aymara Nieto Muñoz served four years in prison for her activism in the Ladies in White and when released officials created a new case against her and sentenced her to five years and four months in prison. This was in retaliation for not having agreed with State Security to leave the country with her family.

Laura is not forgotten, and her memory and example continue to animate the Ladies in White, and their current leader Berta Soler.

Berta Soler Fernandez is the current leader of the Ladies in White in Cuba.

Sadly, too many in the international community are funding the dictatorship, and ignoring what Havana does with the resources provided. On February  12, 2023 in her column "Cuba Dares Biden to Look Away" exposed the nexus between Iran, Cuba, Venezuela and terrorist groups in subverting democracy in Peru.

"In March 2015, political and security analyst Dardo López-Dolz, a former Peruvian vice minister of the interior, laid out the threat before a U.S. House subcommittee. He said Iran and Hezbollah came to his attention in 2011, when “a connection was forming between the Islamic Republic and other activist movements in Peru controlled by Havana, Caracas and La Paz.” The Cuban and Venezuelan “political/social organizations aimed at subverting and weakening our democratic institutions and spreading socialist ideology,” he said, had been operating in Peru “since at least 2005.”

The Islamic regime in Iran, a close ally of Havana, has embarked on a six month long crackdown against protesters killing over 528 protesters, and jailing approximately 20,000 protesters.

World Movement for Democracy: "deeply concerned about the Cuban government’s ongoing crackdown on civil society"

Human rights situation in Cuba continues to deteriorate. Reproducing statement issued by the World Movement for Democracy on September 30, 2016:

CUBAN AUTHORITIES’ ESCALATE VIOLENT ASSAULTS ON CIVIL SOCIETY

On September 23, 2016, police authorities raided the headquarters of Cuban Legal Information Center (CUBALEX) and confiscated computers, hard drives, USB drives and cell phones. Cuban activist Kirenia Yalit stated: “when it seemed that everything was going to end and they had concluded their interrogations’ of the activists, they forced them to strip naked ‘and squat to verify that there was nothing hidden in their bodies.” The authorities also told Laritza Diversent, Director of CUBALEX, that members of the organization could be accused of “illicit economic activity” and “illicit association.”

CUBALEX is an independent Cuban organization based in the Havana municipality of Arroyo Naranjo, and provides free legal advice to Cuban citizens and civil society activists. Unfortunately, the raid of the CUBALEX offices was part of a larger wave of harassment against Cuban civil society that has been taking place since last week.A day earlier, 23 activists belonging to the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) were arrested, one of whom was indefinitely detained. This arrest marks the 43rd UNPACU member who has been imprisoned by the authorities.

Laritza Diversent, Director of CUBALEX

On September 18, 27 members of the Ladies in White movement, and several  #TodosMarchamos (We All March) demonstrators, were arrested during peaceful protests. In a separate incident, Ladies in White activist Leticia Ramos, is facing baseless charges of “public disorder” after a police raid on her home. As of now, Ramos is under a government-imposed house arrest. On September 20, Cuban political police raided and disbanded a “meeting of several trade unionists,” according to Iván Hernández Carrillo, spokesman for Cuba’s Independent Trade Union Coalition. 

On September 27, Cuban authorities detained Arturo Rojas and Ada López, members of the Otro18 (Another 18) initiative, which seeks to promote independent candidates trying to run in Cuba’s 2018 elections. The two activists were prevented from traveling to Colombia to observe the upcoming plebiscite on the country’s Peace Accords. 

The World Movement for Democracy is deeply concerned about the Cuban government’s ongoing crackdown on civil society, and urges them to cease the harassment immediately. Cuban activists should be able to practice their right to freedom of assembly and association without encountering state-sponsored violence. Ladies in White leader, Berta Soler, has urged the world to stand up for Cuba’s human rights activists in her recent interview. 

Join us in solidarity of Cuban activists by tweeting this message to the government of Cuba:

#ATTN #Cuba: End the #crackdown on #civilsociety! Read DemAlert here: bit.ly/2dK1XjA #TodosMarchamos #damasdeblanco #CUBALEX #Otro18

Region: 

Latin America/Caribbean

Topic: 

Economic Development and Democracy, Elections, Freedom of Assembly and Association,Freedom of Expression, Human Rights, Institutional Development, Labor/Worker Rights, Minority Rights, Women’s Rights, Youth, Defending Civil Society

http://www.movedemocracy.org/cuban-authorities%E2%80%99-escalate-violent-assaults-civil-society

Ladies in White leader Berta Soler threatened with unjust trial for "resistance"

#SolidarityWithBerta

Berta Soler

Berta Soler, leader of the Ladies in White, who has suffered physical assaults in the past, has had her passport taken and is being charged with "resistance" and faces a regime show trial following her detention this past Sunday, May 22, 2016, during a nonviolent protest.

Berta was given the court docket number 30-260 of 2016.  She explains the motive behind the regime's action: "What they are seeking is to have power of control over me so that I can not leave the country temporarily." She refused to sign the sign the indictment drafted by the police. Nor was the document handed to Berta Soler.

However, the activist said to Cubanet, "I will continue to live my life normally as always," and further noted that if this leads her to jail that she will "go as a prisoner of conscience, because I'm sure I have not done anything."


"These are the images of arrest (last Sunday), and I did not raise my hand for anything," and Berta Soler added that this action would not stop her from trying to travel outside of the country if she needed to raising the challege: Let Immigration at the airport tell me that I cannot travel."

On May 24, 2016 the streets surrounding the headquarters of the Ladies in White were blocked by state security agents to prevent members and friends of the Ladies in White from attending their monthly literary tea.

Blocking streets around Ladies in White headquarters (Angel Moya)

This needs to be placed in the current context in Cuba and the history of her movement. 
 
Repression is worsening in Cuba and the Ladies in White are not exempt from this trend. Earlier this month Rosa Escalona, member of “The Ladies in White”, a human rights group in Cuba, along with her husband and three sons were subjected to a savage beating by Castro agents. All four family members suffered great bodily injury, with her husband Alberto Pedro Freire Leiva being the most critically injured. This unprovoked attack took place Sunday, May 8^th in the city of Holguín, Cuba. Rosa made the following statement by way of telephone to the Cuban Democratic Directorate:

“Yesterday I was detained as I was heading to church. I was once again threatened by members of the State Security who stated that they would “finish with me and my family”. Two men came out of Lenin Hospital with iron bars and proceeded to attack us. My 25 year old son’s head was broken in two places and he received a skull fracture, my two small sons received blows throughout their bodies and I sustained direct blows to my ribs and a broken head. My husband, Alberto Pedro Freire Leiva is currently in grave condition and it is not known if he will survive. His spleen was broken in two places and as a result, he has had massive internal bleeding with more than 1,000 millimeters of blood throughout his abdomen. My son Yunior Alberto Freire Escalona is under observation in neurosurgery where he might need to be operated. During the attack, one of the men disclosed knowing that I was a member of the “Ladies in White” and a counter revolutionary, he warned me to be very careful of him because when he catches me on the street again he will run me and my sons over with a truck.”

Lady in White Daisy Cuello Basulto denounced that her 21 year old daughter was arrested, violently stripped and forced to urinate in front of police officers in a police station in Cotorro. The 21 year old was arrested along with her mom and other family on September 27, 2015 while on their way to attend the Sunday march of the Ladies in White. The young woman was locked in a cell with a strong smell of hydrochloric acid and now suffers from a sore throat. "She has a fever and feels very bad," reported her mother.

 
The founding leader of the movement Laura Inés Pollán Toledo died under suspicious circumstances in 2011 in the midst of a wave of suspicious deaths of opposition leaders. Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, a Cuban medical doctor and human rights defender, called it a case of purposeful medical neglect.

Demonstrating support for the Ladies in White, even outside of Cuba, is not without risk. On May 22, 2010 Norwegian media reported that Cuban diplomat, Carmen Julia Guerra, insulted, threatened, and bit a young Norwegian woman, Alexandra Joner age 19, of Cuban descent on her mother's side while she was across the street from the Cuban embassy in Oslo. She was filming a non-violent demonstration in solidarity with the Ladies in White and in remembrance of martyred Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo. The main national newspaper in Norway, Aftenposten,  photographed the young girl with bite marks on her hand.

It is important to recall how the Ladies in White came into existence in 2003 in the midst of the Black Cuban Spring. Days after one of the worse crackdown's on Cuba's national civic movement that began on March 18, 2003 the wives, sisters and daughters of these unjustly imprisoned human rights defenders formed the Ladies in White. An association of women seeking the release of their unjustly imprisoned husbands, sons, brothers and fathers.

In addition to their weekly marches demanding the release of Cuban political prisoners the Ladies in White would also gather together for a monthly "literary tea." Each Lady in White would participate reading letters from their jailed husbands, poems, and literature with the objective of raising their spirits. During these gatherings there are moments of laughter and also of tears.

Amnesty international has denounced the climate of fear and repression directed by regime officials against the Ladies in White. This movement has also been recognized internationally with important honors.The Ladies in White were awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2005 and were nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize in 2013.

Crackdown on opposition in Cuba ignored by visiting Congressional delegation

Will the plight of Cubans continue to be ignored for the sake of regime engagement?

Danilo Maldonado "El Sexto" arbitrarily detained since Dec 26, 2014 HRF

 Five months after President Obama's announcement of a reset on Cuba policy repression continues to rise. At the same time the Administration seems to be ignoring the Castro regime's continuing outlaw behavior such as smuggling Chinese arms through Colombia uncovered on February 28, 2015. Visiting delegations of the U.S. government have been focusing on economic opportunities with the dictatorship while remaining publicly silent on human rights situation only to say that they've discussed it privately with officials. 

One of these individuals, who is in Cuba today, is Senator Tom Udall of New Mexico. Back on December 17, 2014 Senator Udall discussed the policy announcement on UK's Channel 4 and at the time he said: "We are going down the road to empower the Cuban people, for us to be engaged rather than to isolate and we are going to see good things happen in both countries for our people."

Rep. John Larson, Sen. Tom Udall, Sen. Al Franken, & Rep. Raúl Grijalva Photo: Yoani Sanchez

Senator Udall is now in Cuba with Senator Al Franken, Congressman Raúl Grijalva, and Congressman John Larson with an agenda that appears to be focused on trade and lifting economic sanctions.

Unfortunately since December 17th, despite the prediction of Senator Udall, we have seen some bad things happen to Cubans. Rising violence and arbitrary detentions against dissenters among them artists such as Danilo Maldonado "El Sexto", Tania Bruguera, and Gorki Águila. Another example that demonstrates the totalitarian nature of the regime is the case of Yosvany Melchor, imprisoned since 2010 in reprisal for his mother not becoming a regime informant.  Berta Soler, leader of the internal opposition group, the Ladies in White expressed her concerns regarding the Cuba reset.

We, Ladies in White, believe that these relations and conversations between the Cuban and U.S. governments will not be of any benefit to the Cuban people. And even less will it empower civil society, as President Barack Obama says. If no conditions are placed on the Cuban government, it will be more of the same or worse. We don't see the U.S. government, the European Union, or Pope Francis, pronouncing themselves as regards the violations of human rights on the island, which is giving the Cuban government a green light to continue violating them.

Back on December 17, in the discussion with Senator Udall, I had the opportunity to briefly address some of the misrepresentations surrounding the sanctions policy on Cuba and the history of U.S. Cuba relations during the Carter and Clinton administrations and why the current administration's policy reset will not be positive.

Sadly, I disagree with the Senator in much of what he said. First and foremost the embargo policy as it was initiated in 1961 was not to overthrow the Castro regime.  It was to limit its expansion into the hemisphere of the Americas. The policy was successful with two caveats: In 1979 after the Carter administration tried to normalize relations with Cuba, loosen sanctions, open the interests section, Cuba was successful in gaining an outpost in Nicaragua with the Sandinista revolution that they helped finance and support and again in the 1990s when Bill Clinton who shook hands with Fidel Castro then and opened up trade between Cuba and the United States on a cash and carry basis we saw that Venezuela became an outpost of the Cuban regime. Cuban intelligence officials today are killing and being involved in the repression of the Venezuelan people. [...] The problem is you have a Stalinist dictatorship that will not allow normalization to flood in. The US has been trading with Cuba since 2000, not with Cubans, with the Castro regime, with the dictatorship. That has not translated into more freedom for the Cuban people. What that has translated into his hard currency for them to repress the population there.

Senator Udall, now in Cuba, has the opportunity to prove me wrong by addressing the human rights situation publicly and with his colleagues, Senator Al Franken among them, directly assist Cuban artists and others currently jailed and detained in Cuba for exercising basic freedoms.

December 17, 2014 on UK's Channel 4 discussing change in Cuba policy

Subcommittee Hearing: Human Rights in Cuba: A Squandered Opportunity

Hearing live streamed here starting at 10:00am EST with Cuban opposition activists.

                         Antúnez                          Berta Soler            Sara Martha Fonseca              

Subcommittee on Africa, Global Health, Global Human Rights, and International Organizations | 2172 Rayburn House Office Building Washington, DC 20515 | Feb 5, 2015 10:00am to 1:00pm

Chairman Smith on the hearing: “This hearing will examine the still-deplorable state of human rights in Cuba, especially the regime’s treatment of Afro-Cubans, who face discrimination on a day-to-day basis.  The Obama Administration, in its haste to achieve a breakthrough in Cuba, missed an opportunity to better conditions on the island and to hold the Castro regime to certain basic human rights standards in exchange for normalizing relations.  The Administration is wrong to attempt a sea change in policy toward Cuba without congressional input and in apparent disregard of well-established law, not to mention concern for the well-being of the Cuban people, who suffer under a communist dictatorship which has shown no signs of reform.”

WITNESS:

Mr. Jorge Luis García Pérez
Secretary General
Cuban National Civic Resistance Front

Ms. Berta Soler Fernández
Leader
Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco)

Ms. Sara Martha Fonseca Quevedo
Member
Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco)

Mr. Geoff Thale
Program Director
Washington Office on Latin America

Over the past two days, first in the Senate and today in the House of Representatives hearings on Cuba have been held to discuss changes in Cuba policy and ramifications of freeing Cuban spies.

Berta Soler: "In the name of the victims of Cuba's Communist regime. Cuba yes, Castro no."

Excerpt of Testimony of Mrs. Berta Soler, President of the Cuban Ladies in White Cuba,  before the Senate Foreign Relations Subcommittee 

Berta Soler testifies on Cuba in Washington, DC. Watch full hearing on US Foreign Relations Senate Committee website: 3 hours, 52 minutes, Soler from 2:58:25. (From Senate.gov)

February 3, 2015

We are presently living through a particularly defining moment for the future of our country in the wake of the recent announced reestablishment of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the United States.

I am appearing here as the leader of the Ladies in White, a group of women activists who support change towards democracy in our country through non-violent means, inspired by the example of women such as Rosa Parks and Coretta King, among others, who with courage and determination blazed paths for the full enjoyment of civil rights in this country. Now 50 years after the events in Selma, Alabama, and testifying before a Subcommittee who mandate includes Global Women's Issues, it is a great honor and an historic opportunity for me to appear before you.

I also speak on behalf of numerous leaders and activists from Cuban civil society who have entrusted me with speaking for them before you. It is a civil society that is particularly repressed by the intolerance of a government whose exercise of power consists of the systematic violation of the human rights of the Cuban people. Just before I left Cuba to be here, last January 28th, the day we celebrate the birth of our Founding Father José Martí, dozens of activists were arrested in Havana and other provinces for attempting to place offerings of flowers at statues of José Martí. In its totalitarian vision, the dictatorship seeks a monopoly on our national identity through the use of force against all independent activists.

The most respected international human rights organizations have documented violations of human rights in Cuba. On October 23, 2013, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights issued an injunction on behalf of members of the Ladies in White, to afford protection in the face of systematic repression by Cuban authorities.

[...]

Our aspirations are legitimate because they are undergirded by the Universal Declaration of Human Rights to which Cuba is a party, and the signed international pacts on civil and political rights which have not been ratified by the dictatorship. Our demands are quite concrete: freedom for political prisoners, recognition of civil society, the elimination of all criminal dispositions that penalize freedom of expression and association and the right of the Cuban people to choose their future through free, multiparty elections.

We believe these demands are just and valid. Even more importantly, for us they represent the most concrete exercise of politics, a step in the direction of democratic coexistence. Cuba will change when the laws that enable and protect the criminal behavior of the forces of repression and corrupt elements that sustain the regime change.

In the name of those who have been executed by the firing squads.

In the name of Cuban political prisoners.

In the name of the pilots from the humanitarian organization, Brothers to the Rescue, murdered on Fidel Castro's orders.

In the name of the victims from the "13 de Marzo" tugboat.

In the name of the victims of Cuba's Communist regime.

Cuba yes, Castro no.

Full testimony in PDF format

Is there a nationwide crackdown underway in Cuba?

Human Rights Defenders violently repressed today in Cuba

Activists home raided and ransacked at 6am today. Both arrested

A half-dozen members of the Cuban Patriotic Union (UNPACU), including its leader Jose Daniel Ferrer, were beaten and arrested yesterday on their way to Las Tunas from from Santiago de Cuba.

At 6:00am today (June 11, 2014) in Cuba the home of Cuban democracy activists Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antunez" and Yris Perez Aguilera was assaulted as they slept and ransacked by state security agents.  They were beaten and taken away. Following their arrest Yris managed to send out some tweets informing what happened:

They have us in police instruction after they raided our house @yriscuba
SOS In deep sleep Political police raided the house @yriscuba
They assaulted our home. @yriscuba

Damaris Moya Portieles, president of the Opposition Movement for a Free Cuba, from Santa Clara informed the Cuban Democratic Directorate that she had "recieved a message of Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera that says that "at six in the morning her home was raided by the National Revolutionary Policy and State Security, where they were arrested and at this moment are in the Police Instruction unit here in the city of Santa Clara." 

At 12:29pm the Cuban Democratic Directorate tweeted that twelve activists of the Orlando Zapata Tamayo (OZT) Front in Camagüey were detained for demanding freedom for Yris and Antunez.

At 10:38am over twitter Roberto Guerra, a Cuban independent journalist and head of the Hablemos Press news service, reported that he had been beaten up and left bloodied by agents of the Castro regime (pictured below).

Independent journalist assaulted by regime agents

Martha Beatriz Roque, former prisoner of conscience, was beaten outside her home by two women who refused to identify themselves then a regime agent approached and explained that she could not leave her house.

Members of The Ladies in White, including its leader Berta Soler, and her husband Angel Moya were arrested today reported Henry Constatin. 

Jorge Luis Garcia Perez "Antunez", Yris Perez Aguilera, Berta Soler and Roberto J. Guerra have spoken out about the human rights situation in important venues and you can watch them online. A great way to help them would be to raise their profile by sharing their presentations and allowing others to get to know them.

 A conversation with Jorge Luis Garcia Pérez "Antúnez of Cuba
http://youtu.be/R131CwqsEeg

Yris Perez Aguilera addresses the United Nations Human Rights Council
http://youtu.be/0fHYX-UNTQc

Interview with Berta Soler and the Ladies in White
http://youtu.be/5S9xk9u7YUM

Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez - Oslo Freedom Forum 2013
http://youtu.be/awGkZDOev8E  

Cuban Moms Are Heroes Standing Up For Freedom

"They can either kill us, put us in jail or release them. We will never stop marching no matter what happens." - Laura Pollan, Ladies in White leader who died under suspicious circumstances


Trending over Twitter this evening was the hashtag #CubanMomsBeLike and some courageous Cuban moms came to mind: The Ladies in White.  

Many Cuban moms are heroes standing up for freedom in Cuba using nonviolent means. Since March of 2003 a group of Cuban mothers formed the Ladies in White and began regularly demonstrating in the streets of Cuba demanding the release of all prisoners of conscience and the respect for human rights so that no new prisoners of conscience are ever again jailed in Cuba.

They have been threatened, badly beaten, and the founder of the movement, Laura Inés Pollán Toledo, died under suspicious circumstances on October 14, 2011.

The Cuban dictatorship is a totalitarian regime that is a tropical version of its ally North Korea. Despite this reality, these Cuban are risking all for a Cuba in which human rights are respected.

They are like the German housewives married to Jewish husbands in Rosenstrasse, Germany who in 1943 took to the streets to protest their loved ones being seized and taken to concentration. They managed to organize a sustained large protest movement that got them their loved ones back.

The Ladies in White got their husbands, brothers and sons back after more than seven years in prison but unlike the German women who then disbanded they have continued their campaign demanding that all Cuban prisoners of conscience be freed and human rights be respected.

This is why these women, now led by Berta Soler, are heroes standing up for the freedom of the Cuban people. Al Jazeera in their program People and Power broadcast the above story on these courageous Cuban moms in November of 2012.

Oslo Freedom Forum: Day 2 is underway watch it streamed live now

"There are no dictatorships of the right or left, all are dictatorships. We want to end the one of the Castros" - Berta Soler

Berta Soler recieves the Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent

Watch: 2013 Oslo Freedom Forum and the Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent
 

OSLO (May 15, 2012)—The final day of the 2013 Oslo Freedom Forum begins this morning at 9:30am CEST (3:30am EST) and will be streamed live at www.oslofreedomforum.com. A full schedule of events is available here.

Today’s first session, titled A Climate of Fear, will feature recently escaped Bahraini blogger Ali Abdulemam, bestselling Zimbabwean author Peter Godwin, Iranian-Canadian anti-death penalty activist Maryam Nayeb Yazdi, recently assaulted Venezuelan opposition leader Julio Borges, Eritrean journalist Meron Estefanos, and Danish journalist and filmmaker Mads Brügger.

A panel discussion will follow on Façade Capitalism and its Threat to Human Rights, an examination of the dark side of governance models that sacrifice civil and political rights in the name of stability and economic growth, featuring journalist and author Luke Harding, Angolan journalist Rafael Marques de Morais, American economist Donald Boudreaux, and Singaporean opposition leader Chee Soon Juan. The panel will be moderated by Daily Beast news editor Michael Moynihan, and viewers are welcome to participate in the question and answer session by following OFF on Twitter at @OsloFF and using hashtag #OsloFF to ask questions, or by emailing questions@oslofreedomforum.com.

The day’s final session, The Art of Dissent, will feature talks from Cameroonian musician and former political prisoner Lapiro de Mbanga, Belarusian theatre director Natalia Kaliada, Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat, and Zimbabwean artist Owen Maseko. Nobel Laureate Mario Vargas Llosa will deliver the concluding remarks at the forum.

The second annual Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissident will be awarded at the close of the event to Ali Ferzat, North Korean democracy activist Park Sang Hak, and the Cuban civil society group The Ladies in White. Berta Soler, leader of The Ladies in White, will accept the award on the group’s behalf. The laureates will each receive an artist’s representation of the “Goddess of Democracy,” the iconic statue erected by Chinese student leaders during the Tiananmen Square protests of June 1989. The recipients will also share a prize of 350,000 Norwegian kroner.

The Havel Prize ceremony will begin at 4:00pm CEST (10am EST) at the Christiania Theater. It will be free and open to the public beginning at 3:45pm CEST.

Inquiries: please contact info@oslofreedomforum.com.
All 2013 OFF talks and panel discussions will be uploaded to www.oslofreedomforum.com beginning Monday, May 20.

Ladies in White and their spokeswoman Berta Soler held vigil for martyrs

Yolanda Huerga, Ladies in White spokeswoman in the United States introduces Berta Soler

Ladies in White and their spokeswoman Berta Soler held vigil for Cuban martyrs this late afternoon in Merrick Park in Coral Gables.

Coral Gables Mayor James Cason presentes key to the city to Berta Soler

 Above are some pictures from the vigil and below videos from the event.