Juliet Michelena Díaz, José Antonio Sieres Ramallo and Billy Joe Landa Linares, were stopped on San José between Belascoaín and Manrique, talking with me, on the balcony, which they’ve dubbed “The Ferns,” an allusion to the Cuban telenovela, when Patrol Car No 767 appeared to arrest them. They wanted to take the two men and leave the woman. She opposed it.
At that moment, officials from State Security officers and two women in uniform with the rank of Major arrived. They jumped on Billy Joe and Juliet. At first they beat him by squeezing his testicles, and injected something in his left arm, near the shoulder.
When he was released, he had to be transferred to the Poze Bernardo polyclinic of San Miguel del Padrón, where he was supplied oxygen. He didn’t want to go to the hospital to avoid being subjected to the political police.
Juliet was dragged by the two officers and a third woman dressed in civilian clothes. They gave low a low blow and hit her in the mouth when she screamed. The public intervened, saying, “Don’t hit her, she’s a woman,” “Don’t be abusers.” Only one woman shouted “Viva Fidel,” and “Down with the worms,” but it didn’t have any resonance. Also arrested wereYuleidis López González and Juan Carlos Diaz Fonseca, who were driven out to Guanabacoa and abandoned there.
Barbara Fernandez Barrera and Misael Aguilar Hernández, arrested in San Antonio de los Baños, were taken to an unknown place, and had to walk 3 kilometers alone until a truck picked them up and took them to Quivicán in the province of Mayabeque.
In front of my balcony those cooperating with the police hid behind a column so we couldn’t take their picture, but we did.
Wherever the people are concentrated, the regime acts repressively. They can not allow the street to heat up from the “Balcony of the Ferns.”
Cubanet, 13 February 2104, Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello
