Cubans Berta Soler and Angel Moya are Detained Again on Sunday, for the Seventh Consecutive Week

Photo taken by Ángel Moya from his home to document the surveillance by State Security. (Facebook)

14ymedio biggerEFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 7 March 2022 — Ladies in White leader, Berta Soler, and her husband activist Ángel Moya were once again detained for several hours on Sunday, as he confirmed on Monday.

“They imposed a fine of 7.50 pesos for being undocumented and they confined me to a cell until they released me at 11:20 pm in the street of the Ladies in White national headquarters,” wrote Moya on his Facebook account.

The two activists were detained on Sunday when they attempted to go out once again, for the seventh consecutive week, to demand the release of all those arrested in relation to the antigovernment protests of July 11th.

As they explained, the detention took place outside the headquarters of the Ladies in White in the Lawton area of Havana.

“[Berta and Ángel] have been detained and disappeared at 11:16 this morning at Calle E and Porvenir in Lawton as they went out to the street to exercise their right to freedom,” denounced Ladies in White member Lourdes Esquivel Vieyto on social media on Sunday.

According to Moya, both were transferred to different detention centers, where they were held in the cells for more than ten hours.

Since the Ladies in White announced that they would protest each Sunday, as they did before the pandemic, demanding the release of those detained for the antigovernment protests on July 11th, they have been arrested every week.

The Ladies in White movement emerged in 2003 as a result of the wave of Cuban government repression known as the Black Spring. Two years later, they received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament.

The EU and NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International criticized that wave of politically motivated arrests. Cuban authorities, however, alleged that it was an attack on national sovereignty on orders of the United States.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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