I like to try to keep up
with the work of the Human Rights Foundation and received a message recently
about Cuba’s Ladies in White. The Ladies in White (“Las Damas de Blanco”) is a
Cuban civil society organization founded by the very brave wives, sisters, mothers, and
daughters of political prisoners jailed during the Castro regime’s “Black
Spring” crackdown in 2003. Group members wear white to symbolize their
commitment to a peaceful struggle for freedom. Despite repeated arrests and
beatings by Cuban authorities, the group marches every Sunday in different locations
around Cuba to protest human rights violations under the Castro dictatorship.
Berta Soler has led the group since the death of founder Laura Pollán in 2011.
Recently, the Ladies performed a Sunday march for freedom
and human rights after a visit to the church of San Jose de Colon in Matanzas
Province. According to the Human Rights Foundation website:
“A group of government supporters cut
off the protest and proceeded to beat and harass the group members, striking
and shouting insults at the 12 female members of the group. Sayli Navarro, a
group member who took part in the march on July 14, stated that after the mob
attacked the peaceful protest, the Ladies took refuge in the home of one of the
group members, where “the mob gathered outside her house” and “they began to
carry out an ‘act of repudiation,’” throwing objects at the women and shouting
insults.
On August 4, the
Ladies in White asked Dionisio García Ibáñez, the Archbishop of Santiago de
Cuba, to intervene on their behalf and request that the Cuban government stop
the regime’s repressive actions against them.
“That same day, while a group of
Ladies attended mass in the southeastern city of Cárdenas, a crowd of
government supporters gathered outside the church and waited for the members to
come out. However, the Ladies were able to elude the mob and return to their
homes unharmed.
“These recent events remind us that
the campaign of harassment, persecution, hostility, and threats against the
Ladies in White is an ongoing pattern of militant behavior sponsored and
directed by the Casto regime,” said HRF president Thor Halvorssen. “These brave
women face persecution, attacks, and arrests every Sunday during their peaceful
protest. Their deplorable treatment at the hands of the government and its
supporters underscores the fact that the story of ‘reform’ peddled by the Cuban
government is fiction circulated by the Castro brothers.”
The HRF is nonprofit, nonpartisan organization
that promotes and protects human rights globally, with a special focus on the
Americas. Check out their website: they do good – and important – work.
www.thehrf.org.
