14ymedio, Havana, 20 April 2025 — The police operation set up around the headquarters of the Ladies in White and the home of opponents Berta Soler and Angel Moya, this Sunday, were confirmed by them in a call to 14ymedio. However, this Sunday’s siege, Moya notes, is similar to the one they usually suffer on weekends to prevent them from attending church. Saturday, on the other hand, was enormous. “They are on both corners with tremendous impunity because we cannot directly publish anything of what they are doing to us because we do not have phones, Moya confirmed yesterday to this newspaper.
“Several of our neighbors have told us that there is also a large operation on Porvenir Avenue,” said the former prisoner of the Black Spring who, along with his wife, activist Berta Soler, was arrested last Thursday and had their phones confiscated by State Security. He added that their legal status, at this time, is that both are “under a precautionary measure of house arrest for the alleged crime of violating the established constitutional order.”
Both Soler, leader of the Ladies in White, and Moya are under house arrest for 48 days and cannot leave their homes because, among other charges, they “violate the country’s independence and sovereignty” due to their recent meeting with the head of the US Embassy in Cuba, Mike Hammer.
Hammer accompanied Soler on April 13, Palm Sunday, to the church of Santa Rita, in the Havana neighborhood of Miramar. He escorted her to the parish after several Sundays in which a large police operation prevented her from leaving her home. Subsequently, last Thursday, both opponents were arrested around 2:00 pm in the area of the Virgen del Camino, in Havana, as reported by the organization Cubalex.
Moya clarifies that although they have not yet been formally charged, they are “under investigation”
Moya clarifies that although they have not yet been formally charged, they are “under investigation.” During the arrest, Soler and Moya’s mobile phones were seized by State Security, a concern for both. ” They are the cell phones that we use to connect to social networks and were switched off when we handed them over. They asked us for our passwords and we refused to tell them.” The political police officers warned them that despite this they were going to “open and technically check” the devices.
The opponent warns: “if our social networks and our private channels contain confusing and biased messages then it is State Security that is writing them.”
The activists have tried to spread the word about their situation through various channels despite being under house arrest. This Sunday, Moya and Soler managed to appear on social networks and said that they would go out on the street after 12 noon. “The house is not a dungeon,” argued Soler. Moya explained that after the arrest they had been taken to different police units -Soler to the station of Cotorro and he to Guanabacoa – where they stayed for more than 24 hours. After returning to their home, they were cut off from internet access.
The US Embassy in Havana shared on Saturday a publication from the Office of Western Hemisphere Affairs expressing its “outrage” at the repression against the dissidents. “This further demonstrates the regime’s ruthless disregard for religious freedom and once again exposes the brutal ill-treatment that the regime inflicts on its own people by attempting, as it admits, to intimidate US diplomats,” the Office denounced.
It added that the Embassy “will continue to meet with Cubans from all walks of life, particularly those who defend human rights, fundamental freedoms and human dignity.”
The previous arrest of both dissidents occurred on Sunday, April 6, when they tried to attend mass
The previous arrest of both dissidents occurred on Sunday, April 6, when they tried to attend mass. In recent years, Berta Soler has reported multiple temporary arrests of her and members of the organization she leads, mostly on Sundays when they are preparing to go to church and are prevented by the police.
The Ladies in White movement was born on the initiative of a group of women relatives of the 75 dissidents and independent journalists arrested in March 2003 and sentenced to long prison sentences during the so-called Black Spring. From then on, the wives, mothers and other relatives of those prisoners identified themselves as always dressed in white and, after attending mass in a Catholic church, began to hold Sunday marches to ask for their release.
In 2005, the Ladies in White received the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought
This beginning of the year has been active for the repressive apparatus of the regime. In parallel with the release of 230 political prisoners through the Vatican, the Island’s government has intensified its persecution of activists and relatives of detainees.
Last Wednesday, the writer and collaborator of 14ymedio, Jorge Fernández Era, was arrested for more than 10 hours after he tried to demonstrate in Havana in solidarity with the protests that teacher Alina Bárbara López carries out every 18th day of the month. Another colleague of the scholar, Jenny Pantoja, who also wanted to support López, was forced to stay in her home by State Security.
Two other 14ymedio collaborators are currently imprisoned: Yadiel Hernández Hernández, known as Kakashi, in Matanzas, since late January, when he was investigating drug trafficking and consumption at a school in the city. The other is José Gabriel Barrenechea, who has been in prison for five months, awaiting trial, for participating in the protests against the blackouts on 8 November at Encrucijada, Villa Clara.
Translated by Regina Anavy
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.