14ymedio, Havana, 6 September 2015 – This Sunday 49 Ladies in White and 15 activists marched along Fifth Avenue in Havana’s Miramar neighborhood, surrounded by a strong police operation. At the end of the pilgrimage they were arrested and sent in a bus to whereabouts unknown.
Among those detained was the Chilean member of congress Felipe Kast, from the EVOPOLI party, who accompanied the march. The incident happened hours after the Chilean Foreign Minister, Heraldo Muñoz, ended his official visit to Cuba along with a Chilean delegation made up of officials of the Chilean government, and representatives from 35 businesses and trade associations.
According to what a source close the Chilean congressman told 14ymedio, Kast was detained for several hours before being released, around 4:00 in the afternoon local time. One released he was taken to Jose Marti International Airport where he left for Santiago de Chile that same afternoon.
Beginning early in the morning, the dissident Martha Beatriz Roque warned of “a police deployment around Santa Rita Church.” The activist detailed that the “repressive forces” were positioned on 3rd, 7th and 31st streets, to block regme opponents from accessing the place.
Meanwhile, the regime opponent Angel Moya denounced that there had been 20 arrests of the Ladies and White and other activists, hours before the beginning of the Sunday march.
In the town of Colón, Matanzas, independent journalist Ivan Hernandez Carrillo reported that 10 Ladies in White marched “for the release of political prisoners, followed by plainclothes police,” with no arrests reported.
