14ymedio, Havana, 9 December 2015 – In the morning hours on Wednesday, the political police undertook a thorough search of the Patriot Union of Cuba (UNPACU) headquarters in the Playa district of Havana. A portable computer and other belongings were seized, a few hours before the start of activities for Human Rights Day.
The owner of the home and activist of the organization, Arcelio Rafael Molina, told 14ymedio that “at approximately 7 in the morning the police started knocking” on his door and showed him a search warrant. After taking the laptop, “a piece of equipment to improve the wifi signal, that we use to send email,” and printed documents, “they did not leave a list of the seized items,” the homeowner said.
Molina is sure they took the signed copies of “the complaints that had been filed with the national leadership of the Police and other authorities, regarding a similar search,” last October.
During the operation, Jorge Cervantes Garcia and Andro Ross were arrested; both are members of the UNPACU in Santiago de Cuba and they were in the home at the time. To date their whereabouts are unknown.
Berta Soler, leader of the Ladies in White, denounced that in the town of Esmeralda in Ciego de Avila province, the Lady in White Yarleni Sanchez was arrested on her way to a medical clinic. The police arrested her because they assumed she was on her way to Havana to participate in the demonstration planned for Thursday at 23rd and L in Vedado, to mark Human Rights Day.
Other Ladies in White, Julia Herrera and Nieves Caridad Matamoros, have reported having their houses surrounded to prevent their going out in response to the call to demonstrate. For the same reason the police detained Pavel Herrera, a member of the opposition movement For a New Republic, at 6.30 in the morning, and Rolando Reyes Rabanat, who was taken from his home this morning.
