HAVANA – In late September, an organized pro-government mob of around 300 people, along with State Security agents with loudspeakers that resonated speeches by Fidel Castro, and who were screaming slogans, insults, obscenities, and carrying flags and posters, surrounded the home of one of the representatives of the peaceful human rights group of women known as the “Ladies in White”.
Some 35 women from numerous provinces were gathered at the Havana home of Laura Pollán to make their usual once-a-year pilgrimage by foot to attend mass at the Church of Our Lady of Mercy, patron saint of prisoners. The women were brutally assaulted by plainclothes State Security agents when they tried to leave the house. The mob pounced on them, hitting, twisting their arms, and even biting the women.
Pollan said her home had been monitored since the previous day and she didn’t know why her group was not allowed to march as they have on September 24 in past years. She accused the government of coordinating the act of repudiation.
“These are people who are brought in because they’re always the same ones,” Pollan said.
The pro-Castro mob kept screaming “they will not go through” (no pasarán) and “machete, they are only a few” (machete que son poquitas), implying that the women would never get through the crowd, and that, because the women were only a few, they were easy prey, implying brutal violence, at the hands of the mob.
The Ladies in White, who formed to press for the release of their political prisoner husbands, intellectuals, and social commentators jailed in a 2003 crackdown, historically have marched to commemorate the day of the Virgin of Mercedes, the patron saint of prisoners.
Their loved ones were freed over the past year under a deal brokered by the Roman Catholic Church, but the Ladies say they intend to keep protesting for greater freedom. They have refocused their agenda by demanding freedom for some 50 prisoners convicted of politically motivated crimes.
Two supporters of the Ladies in White were taken off the bus they were riding by State Security agents, who took their personal documents to prevent them from continuing their journey on to Havana from Eastern Cuba. Two other of the Ladies disguised themselves as beggars to reach the house of Ms. Pollan. Throughout Cuba, there were activists, including Ladies in White, who were threatened and kept under house arrest to prevent their attending the mass at the church. Numerous human rights activists also suffered short term arrests the same day, including: human rights defenders Aimee Garces and Tania Montoya, who were detained as they left Ms. Pollan’s home to make their return trip back to their homes in Eastern Cuba and released after authorities took away all their money. In Havana, activist Eriberto Liranza, leader of the Cuban Youth Movement for Democracy, was arrested, beaten and released, and so were Jorge Luis Garcia Perez Antunez and his wife Yris Tamara Perez Aguilera. Manuel Cuesta Morua was detained and prevented from attending an independent cultural event in Havana and released a few hours later.