The opposition leader and his wife were intercepted when they were going to church and remained in the police unit until 12 noon.
14ymedio/EFE, Havana, 10 March 2025 — Former Cuban political prisoner Félix Navarro and his wife, Sonia Álvarez, a member of the Ladies in White, were released after being temporarily detained for the second consecutive Sunday, during which time they were repeatedly banned from attending mass.
Navarro told the Spanish news agency EFE by phone that when he and his wife left their home to attend Sunday mass at the Catholic Church, they were arrested by State Security and taken to a police station in Perico, the municipality in the province of Matanzas where they live.
On this occasion they were held from 8:30 to 12:00 local time. They were again given a warning that they could not attend church on Sundays and, as before, they were not fined when they were released.
They were again given a warning that they could not attend church on Sundays and, as before, they were not fined when they were released.
The situation repeated what happened a week earlier, when at 8:30 in the morning Navarro and Álvarez were arrested by a State Security officer who told the former political prisoner that he was on parole and could not go to church. Both were taken to the police unit in the municipality, where they were held for almost three hours until they were released with a warning, which made what happened yesterday foreseeable.
“Félix managed to send me a message through another person and told me that since yesterday [Saturday] they have no connection on their cell phones and cannot make calls,” Annia Zamora told 14ymedio. Zamora is the mother of Sissi Abascal, a Lady in White convicted of participating in the Island-wide protests of 11 July 2021 (’11J’), who is currently in La Bellotex prison in Matanzas.
Last Tuesday, Félix Navarro and Sonia Álvarez had another run-in with the authorities, when the Lady in White was prohibited from wearing that color to see her daughter, Sayli, in the prison where, like Abascal, she is serving her sentence after ’11J’.
This Sunday in Perico, Lázara León and Norma Cabrera, members of the Ladies in White, were also arrested when they were heading to church, according to a complaint made on social media by the leader of that women’s group, Berta Soler.
Navarro, 71, who has a long history in the opposition, was part of the group of 75 opposition members, intellectuals and independent journalists jailed with long sentences in 2003 during the wave of repression known as Black Spring.
Navarro is currently vice president of the Council for Democratic Transition in Cuba (CTDC), and is on parole.
He is currently vice president of the Council for Democratic Transition in Cuba (CTDC), and is on parole after being released from prison as part of the process of releasing 553 people, initiated in mid-January by the Cuban government as a result of negotiations with the United States mediated by the Vatican during the administration of Democrat Joe Biden.
In his case, he was serving a nine-year prison sentence for the crimes of contempt, public disorder and attack, and was arrested along with his daughter following the anti-government protests on July 11, 2021.
This was their third conviction for political reasons, according to Amnesty International (AI), an organization that has recognized both men as prisoners of conscience.
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