(Havana) Berta Soler, leader of the Cuban dissident movement Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White), and her husband Angel Moya, were released Sunday evening after being arrested earlier in the day while leaving their house, also headquartered of the movement, we learned from one of their relatives.
Updated yesterday at 11:12 p.m.
“They released her at 7.20 p.m. and him at 7.25 p.m. (0220 and 0025 GMT),” said Marta Beatriz Roque, a human rights activist and the only woman imprisoned following the “spring black” from 2003.
This activist clarified that Mr.me Soler had previously been taken to hospital, where a doctor on duty gave her a medical certificate confirming her absence of injuries. A week ago, during a similar arrest, “they hit Moya a lot and they filed a complaint,” she said.
Mme Roque had previously confirmed to AFP the arrest of the two dissidents as they prepared to go to a church in Havana.
Mme Soler and her husband, himself one of the 75 political prisoners arrested in 2003, wanted by this gesture to protest against the detention of the participants in the protest movement of July 11 and in memory of the birth of Laura Pollán, another “Lady in white » who died in 2011.
“For the first time nine Ladies in White arrived in different churches”, a way for them to demonstrate in Cuba where any form of protest is repressed, had also specified Ms.me Castling.
On January 23, Mr.me Soler and two other members of her movement had already been arrested as they prepared to go to the church of Santa Rita in Havana, before being released a few hours later.
Several mothers and relatives of demonstrators arrested after the demonstrations of July 11 have approached the dissident movement of the Ladies in White.
To cries of “freedom” and “we are hungry”, thousands of people demonstrated on July 11 in nearly 50 Cuban cities. One person had been killed and dozens injured during these protests. According to the government, by the end of January, 790 people, including 55 minors under the age of 18, had been charged and 172 others convicted.
The United States Embassy protested on Sunday against these lawsuits against minors. “Can a 16-year-old child understand what the concept of sedition means to the point of being accused of it? asked the embassy on its Twitter account.
The opposition is not legal in Cuba and dissidents, frequently arrested for short periods of time, are considered by the communist regime as mercenaries in the pay of the United States.