Cuban Police Detain Several Ladies in White to Block a Protest

Images of the arrests of the Ladies in White outside their headquarters. (Collage)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 23 January 2022 — On Sunday, women dressed in plainclothes at the service of State Security detained a group of Ladies in White along with the mothers of some political prisoners, among whom was Bárbara Farrat, the mother of the 17-year-old Jonathan Torres, imprisoned after the protests of the July 11 (11J).

“They were arrested when leaving the organization’s national headquarters in Lawton-Havana,” activist Ángel Moya Acosta spread on his social networks. Hours earlier, he had reported Farrat’s arrival at the national headquarters of the Ladies in White. “Cuban political prisoners are waiting for everyone. Together we can do more,” he stressed.

In social networks, “Farrat’s courage” was highlighted; in an intimidating act she was arrested and held for hours in December of 2021. Meanwhile, the activist Saily González shared a video in a Twitter message in which Disney Azahares More, Dixan’s sister Gainza, arrested for demonstrating on 11J, along with other relatives of political prisoners from Camagüey, went to the Church in support of the Ladies in White to “demand freedom for political prisoners in Cuba.”

Last Saturday, Ángel Moya Acosta denounced on his Facebook account the “repressive operation” deployed by members of State Security dressed in civilian clothes in the vicinity of the headquarters of the Ladies in White.

The activists had announced on Friday that this Sunday they were going to resume the demonstrations in the streets of Cuba. “We activate the campaign of confrontation for the freedom of all political prisoners without exclusion,” they announced.

The message was broadcast last Friday, the same day that the Justicia 11J platform reported that Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, William Manuel Leyva Pupo, Yosvany Rosell García, Cruz García Domínguez and Chadrián Vila Sequin, detained during the popular protests of July 11, were on a hunger strike.

The complaint highlights that the trials carried out so far are held behind closed doors, under operations in the vicinity of the courts that bloc access to the courtrooms, and only the presence of one family member of the accused is allowed.

In this context, a message shared by Berta Soler on her social networks says that the “moral and political” commitment of every Lady in White is “to support the relatives of political prisoners who act for the freedom of their loved one.”

In the morning, Soler denounced the theft, for the second time, of the padlock and chain from the gate of her apartment, located in Alamar, in Havana. This event was considered by the Lady in White as “an attempted robbery so that I would leave the headquarters and stop my activism. There is no pact with the communists, to the street, keep stealing.”

____________

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.