Cuban police break up dissident sit-in

Posted on Tue, Apr. 22, 2008
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BY LUISA YANEZ
lyanez@MiamiHerald.com
Members of the opposition movement Ladies in White are arrested on April 21, 2008 for staging a sit-in in the surroundings of Revolution Square in Havana. Ten women -- wives of dissidents jailed in Cuba -- arrived at the square demanding the immediate and unconditional release of their loved ones, and with the intention of giving a letter with their demands to Cuban President Raul Castro.
ADALBERTO ROQUE / GETTY
Members of the opposition movement Ladies in White are arrested on April 21, 2008 for staging a sit-in in the surroundings of Revolution Square in Havana. Ten women -- wives of dissidents jailed in Cuba -- arrived at the square demanding the immediate and unconditional release of their loved ones, and with the intention of giving a letter with their demands to Cuban President Raul Castro.


A group of Cuban women peacefully seeking the release from prison of their loved ones Monday were picked up and dragged into buses by Cuban police in Havana -- marking their second failed attempt to deliver a letter with their plea to the Interior Minister.

The 10 women, members of Las Damas de Blanco or the Ladies in White, caused a morning melee captured by international photographers in front of the plaza.

''They were not beaten but they were mistreated,'' said Yolanda Huerga, the Miami spokeswoman for the group and an original member who was on a cellphone with one of the women dragged on the bus by female police officers.

''Since they did not leave peacefully, their arms and legs are all black and blue and bruised. They were manhandled. It was not peaceful what they did to them,'' she said.

The women were lifted up as they lay, arms locked, on the ground.

Once loaded on the bus, they were driven home, something the state police has done in the past.

For five years, the women, who dress all in white, have staged demonstrations every Sunday challenging the government's crackdown and jailing in 2003 of 75 dissident writers and independent journalists. More than than 50 remain incarcerated.

Monday's incident began around 6 a.m. when the women asked to speak to Minister Abelardo Colomé Ibarra. They had a copy of the letter for Cuban President Raúl Castro, Huerga said.

''The women want to sit down and speak to the minister about their loved ones, about their release,'' Huerga said. ``They were told by the main security officer at the building that this was not the right time or place for a meeting.''

The women then asked: ''So when is the right time, and place?,'' she said.

By 9 a.m. the women were on the ground, arms locked, and refusing to leave. ''They started to yell: ``Libertad, Libertad,'' Huerga said. Then the buses arrived.

Huerga said it's not unusual for authorities to drive the women home. ''I was there once when they did it,'' said Huerga, who left Cuba in 2005 with her husband, Manuel Vázquez Portal, who had been among the dissidents arrested.

Every Sunday, the group holds a silent protest march down Havana's busy Fifth Avenue, demanding the release of relatives jailed .

Monday's group consisted of five members: Berta Soler, Laura Pollan, Dolia Leal, Alejandra Garcia and Noelia Pedraza. Five other women were there to show support.

Cuba accuses the activists and other opposition members of working with U.S. authorities to undermine the island's communist system, a charge the dissidents and Washington deny.

U.S. Rep. Ileana Ros-Lehtinen called the incident a ``shameful episode.''

The Associated Press and Miami Herald staff writer Pablo Bachelet contributed to this report.