In Memory of Laura Pollan

Today, all of Cuba grieves for the passing of Laura Pollan, the co-founder of las Damas de Blanco (The Ladies in White). For nearly a decade, she helped to stage weekly protests with other wives of political prisoners to press for their release. She never missed a week, regardless of whether it rained or if the island was awaiting the imminent arrival of a hurricane. She also never gave up hope that her voice, and the voices of so many other families, would be heard.

She was 63 years old when she passed from this world on Friday, October 14th. According to the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, she had been in intensive care for acute respiratory problems since October 7th.

As the head of the Commission said of her, "She was a teacher and a housewife, but she became a leader for civil rights. She has played a fundamental role, without a doubt even beyond winning freedom for her husband."

Indeed, it is true that few can remember a time when Pollan was seen wearing any colour other than white. But, before the Black Spring of 2003 that saw her husband and dozens upon dozens of other Cubans imprisoned on trumped up charges, Laura Pollan was a high school literature teacher who loved cats and plants. She steered clear of politics.

When she dared to speak out against her husband's imprisonment and to call for his release, the Cuban authorities labelled her a "traitor" and a "subversive agent" in the employ of the United States. Even under attacks by paramilitary forces, she and the other brave members of the Ladies in White have continued to march peacefully once a week, a silent and non-violent expression of resistance against a decaying dictatorship that stubbornly clings to power.

IFLRY stands in solidarity with the Ladies in White, the family of Laura Pollan, as well as all those who knew this courageous person, as they go through a difficult and trying time. Her loss is felt around the globe. But, as Laura Pollan passes from this world, she also leaves behind a powerful legacy. The weekly marches of las Damas de Blanco have secured the release of many political prisoners. The decision to continue, to carry on the legacy of Laura Pollan, is a welcome one.

On behalf of the IFLRY Cuba Programme Team, I commit myself to intensifying our efforts, to giving all that we can and all that we have in the struggle for a brighter future for Cuba and the Cuban people. Laura Pollan deserves no less from us.

Paul Pryce

IFLRY Cuba Programme Manager

Source: IFLRY

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Hey Castro! Free Them Now!

The worrying situation of the recently detained Cuban dissidents remains the same. Of the women arrested after a peaceful march through the streets of Rio Verde, Havana, very little is known, except that they have been severely beaten and the majority of them are disappeared, with unknown whereabouts.

Among them, one of the most worrying cases is that of Yris Tamara Perez Aguilera, who has various serious health complications. According to her husband, prominent dissident leader Jorge Luis Garcia ‘Antunez’, “various activists who witnessed the repression last weekend on September 24th (during the march marking the Day of the Resistance, held every 24th of the month) have affirmed that my wife Yris received a brutal beating and many kicks all over her arms and head“. The same occurred to Donaida Perez Paceiro and Yaimara Reyes Mesa, both of whom together with Yris are part of the Rosa Parks Movement for Civil Rights. “I am denouncing that these women are still arrested/disappeared and I am directly accusing the Castro dictatorship and its political police of this brutal repression and of everything that could occur“, declares Antunez, adding that, “the authorities of the country have been incapable of even informing the relatives of those jailed about their condition or their whereabouts“.

Yris Tamara Aguilera

Antunez took the moment to also express gratitude for all the “signs of solidarity received from different parts of the world” and also emphasized that many dissidents within the island have also joined in solidarity. He mentioned protests which demanded the release of these dissidents in places like Palmarito de Cauto, Palma Soriano, and a hunger strike “being carried out right now by members of the Central Cuban Coalition, a group headed by Idania Yanez Contreras“. Up to the moment, the hunger strikers are Guillermo del Sol Perez, Michel Oliva López, Rolando Ferrer Espinosa, Alcides Rivera Rodríguez, and Julio Columbie Batista.

On the afternoon of Thursday, September 29th it was also reported that Eriberto Liranza Romero (detained on the previous day and released that same night) was once again arrested while he demanded to know the situation of Sara Marta Fonseca and her husband Julio Ignacio Leon, both detained. During night hours of that same day, Antunez published a Twitter message in which he informed that ‘Julito’ Leon Fonseca, son of Sara and Julio Ignacio, was finally able to see his mother for a few minutes after he protested for hours in the 4th Police Unit of El Cerro. According to Antunez, ‘Julito’ denounced that his mother has clear marks of a severe beating and was in a poor state of health. He also learned that his father had been checked in to the Carlos Finlay Hospital of Marianao in the Prisoners Unit. The information comes from an audio accompanying Antunez’s Tweet, which can be heard in Spanish here.

Source: Pedazos de la Isla

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Cuba: “Police Brutality” or “Natural Causes” in Dissident's Death?”

Cuban bloggers continue their outcry over the death of dissident Juan Wilfredo Soto, especially in light of an official statement which suggests that Soto, popularly known by his nickname “The Student”, died “of natural causes”.

On hearing the position of the Cuban government, Uncommon Sense quips:

That could be true, of course, because in Cuba under Castro, the police beating a dissident is as natural as it comes.

Then his tone becomes serious, saying:

But the party line has been undermined by witnesses who have stepped forward to tell what they know about Soto's death. The party line is being undermined by the truth.

For instance, there is Mario Lleonart Barroso who says he spoke to Soto after he was beaten and before he was readmitted to a hospital in severe pain.

The blogger also speaks of “other witnesses ready to testify not to what they saw but ready to risk their own lives to ensure that justice prevails in Soto's death” as well as “numerous dissidents ready to go on hunger strike if by July 26, 2011, the dictatorship does not properly investigate what happened to Soto.” One dissident has reportedly already begun [es] his hunger strike.

Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia.

 
The two accounts of Soto's death could not be more contradictory, with local dissidents insisting that he had been beaten by police and officials maintaining that his “acute pancreatitis…led to multiple organ failure” and calling the allegations of police brutality a “'smear campaign' aimed at weakening the Cuban revolution.”
Babalu does not accept the official line, saying:

Apparently, a vicious and brutal beating by State Security is considered a natural cause of death in Cuba.

The blog also takes issue with this post, saying:

Once again we have a ‘Cuba Expert' blaming the victim instead of the assailant. Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia is dead not because Cuban security agents beat him to death, but because Soto Garcia ‘resisted their entreaties to leave the area.'

Meanwhile, Pedazos de la Isla spares a thought for Soto's mother, who “must accept the harsh reality of no longer being able to see her son just because chose to defend human rights in a country where all that is just is considered illegal.” The blogger goes on to question the position of the Cuban government:

The only thing that is clear is that they have responded with fear, quickly asserting that it was all a lie. Now we must wait and see if the international media will repeat the absurd fallacies created by the Castro government, as many did with Orlando Zapata.

Octavo Cerco offers a more personal perspective on the situation:

The last image I have of Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia is at my side running around under the Santa Clara’s relentless sun. We tried to get permission from the Bishop so that Padre Dominico–who had come halfway around the world to get to Cuba–could go see Guillermo Fariñas in Intensive Care at the scheduled visiting hours.

Now I look at the photo in Penultimos Dias of the Student and I don’t recognize him. It must be that I refuse to accept that they beat him to death. It must be that I can’t admit that this time of horror has come to this Island. And I ask myself–is it the obvious uncertainty of rationalism–how many Wilfredos have there already been and how many are still to come? While sitting in a park, an incomprehensible crime, the massive weight of half a century of police impunity falling on his body.

Finally, the blogger goes on to say of the Cuban police, whom she calls “anonymous faces in blue”:

For a long time people have feared them more than the thieves, scammers and criminals. “Call the police” has become the last card in the deck. Because justice does not come with them. Because they are not here to protect us, but to control us at any price.

Written by Janine Mendes-Franco

From: Global Voices

Video of one of the few testimonies of police violence in Cuba. To film or photograph the police in Cuba it's a crime punished by the "law".  The "press" and the "tribunals" work for the dictatorship. So there's no way the citizens could defend themselves against the state.  

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