CUBA
LADIES IN WHITE/ HUMAN RIGHTS REPORT
(two weeks)
October 24 - November 6, 2016
In attachment, two human rights report
(in Spanish) sent from Cuba via email by BERTA SOLER FERNANDEZ, the leader of the peaceful civic movement "Ladies
in White", that documents the acts of repression carried out by Cuban
authorities against human rights defenders during two weeks: OCTOBER 24 - NOVEMBER 6, 2016 when they
tried to attend mass and continue with their ongoing campaign #TODOSMARCHAMOS
("WE ALL MARCH") on behalf of the freedom of all Cuban political
prisoners and the defense of human rights in Cuba.
October 24-30, 2016 - A total of 106 human rights defenders
became the victims of systematic acts of repression and arrests
that included members of the Ladies in White and activists of
different NGO's in the island. For Oct. 31 – Nov. 6, 2016 there was
a total of 114 activists,
victims of systematic acts of repression.
NOTE: The
Cuban government has incremented its repression to the point that it is
succeeding in preventing the participation of members of the ‘Ladies in
White’ as well as of Human Rights Defenders in Sunday Mass and in the peaceful
“Todos Marchamos” campaign. Repressive forces begin to surround the homes of
these activists three or four days prior to Sunday (when the churches are
surrounded as well), in particular, the headquarters of the Ladies in White in
Havana, located at: Calle E, #51 e/ Cumbre y Porvenir, Reparto Lawton,
Municipio 10 de Octubre. The activists are violently arrested as they try to
leave their homes to attend Sunday mass in Havana and in other provinces of the
island. A total of 75 Ladies in White were arrested
before they were able to attend mass on Sunday, Oct. 30, while 31 women were unable to do so. A total of 67 Ladies in White were
arrested on Sunday, Nov. 6 while only 26 women were able to show up at the
church service.
Up to the present reports, the regime has snatched a total of 26 Cuban flags away from the activists
during the past weeks when they attempt to protest peacefully in the streets.
SIGNIFICANT CASES OF REGIME
REPRESSION:
Oct.30 – In Palma Soriano, a drunkard threatened to beat the following
Ladies in White:
Denia Fernández Rey, Yenisleidis Peralta Álvarez, Santa Fernández Díaz,
Maria Lina Perdomo Duran, Ilianna Cedeño Ávila, Reina Rodríguez Cañada, Liane
Seguí García and Marielis Manzano Carballo.
Oct. 26 – Fourteen members of the group Ladies in White in Matanzas were
arrested and prevented from participating in the group’s monthly Literary Tea
held in Havana: Amada Ramona Herrería Rodríguez, Odalis Hernández
Hernández, Marisol
Fernández Socorro, Cira Vega de la Fe, Hortensia Alfonso Vega, Sissi Abascal Zamora, Annia Zamora Carmenate,
Aleida Cofiño Rivera, Caridad
Burunate Gómez, Tania Echeverría Menéndez, Maritza Acosta Perdomo, Mayra García
Álvarez, Lazara Rodríguez Roteta and
Dianelis Moreno Soto.
Oct. 27 – Five activists who had been
arrested in May 25, 2016 and accused of “disorderly conduct” for carrying out a
peaceful demonstration in front of the Capitol Building in Havana, and had
spent 6 months in prison without a trial, were released after their ruling was
modified. Their families were contacted by a tribunal, without the consent of
the prisoners, and told that they had to pay a bail of $1000 for each prisoner
in national currency (moneda nacional). The activists released were: Henry Rey Rodríguez,Jose Antonio Pompa López, Luis Andrés
Domínguez Sardiñas, Emir González Janero and Ibrahim Alemán Urrutia.
Nov. 2, 2016 – Carlos
Manuel Figueroa Alvarez was violently detained
at the entrance of the headquarters of the Ladies in White in Havana and was
then subjected to a brutal beating at the police unit where he was taken. No
one at the pólice unit would provide information of the wherabouts of this
activist.
Nov. 6, 2016 – During her arrest in
Havana, Berta Soler Fernandez was scratched and, once
inside the patrol car, a female police agent bit her right hand while another
agent beat her neck and kept pulling her hair while she yelled at Berta: “I’m
going to pull it out, black woman!”, in addition to calling out numerous obscenities
at her. The police driving the patrol car also offended and threatened Berta. Igdaris
Perez Ponciano (Havana) was
brutally beaten on the face when she was introduced inside the patrol car and
the handcuffs were placed so tight around her wrists that she suffered pain and
lacerations.
NOTE: Activists who try to reach
the headquarters of the Ladies in White are subject to violent acts of
repudiation organized by the Department of State Security and the Communist
Party. These human rights defenders are verbally offended; eggs and rocks are
thrown at them; they are exposed to acts of vandalism; they are pushed inside
their house when they try to leave; they are arrested as well as threatened to
be taken to prison if they continue going to the headquarters of the Ladies in
White.
NOTE: Several Cuban State Departments that are complicit with the repressive
apparatus of the Department of State Security (DSE) are: Ministry of Culture,
Public Health, Education, Transportation, Basic Industries and Electricity.
The following forms of repression
below, that include torture and
other cruel, inhuman or degrading treatment or punishment, were
applied by combined forces of the Department of State Security (DSE), Rapid
Response Brigades sponsored by the Communist Party, the National
Revolutionary Police, and Special Brigades of the National Revolutionary Police
to pro-democracy peaceful activists and their families:
· Prevented from exercising
their right to freedom of worship, of speech, or of peaceful association.
· Forced to remain as
"prisoners" inside their homes under siege.
· Homes are searched and
vandalized (personal possessions that include furniture, documents, books and
supplies used for their pro-democracy activism, including cell phones,
computers, flash drives, CDs, most sent from abroad, are confiscated or
destroyed).
· Personal
belongings seized (including money) are never returned.
· Subjected, alongside their
family, to death threats.
· Children of human rights
defenders are also exposed and subjected to cruel and inhumane treatment and
even arrested alongside their parents.
· Children whose mothers
remain under arrest during 24 hours or more, are unable to attend school during
the time their mothers are imprisoned.
· Prevented from traveling
from their province of residence to attend mass and join the peaceful march of
the Ladies in White in Havana
.
· “Deported” from Havana to
their province of residence or are taken by force to
a distant province where they do not reside.
· Subjected to violent
"acts of repudiation" (gov't sponsored mob attacks) that last for
hours when they are verbally humiliated, insulted, dragged by the hair,
scratched, kicked, punched, pinched, shoved, bitten and even injected with
unknown substances with a needle and syringe. Their clothes and shoes are torn
off, and they are often left exposed or in their underwear.
· Cuban Department of State
Security (DSE) is using minors in organized “acts of repudiation” to verbally
and physically attack peaceful human rights defenders.
· Subjected to brutal
beatings with cables, pieces of water hoses and sticks as well as to Judo
choking techniques that result in injuries such as fractures, cuts,
dislocated joints, concussions, lacerations, bruises, swelling, etc. that
require medical assistance.
· Arrested with violence and
taken to Centers of Detention & Torture in Havana by members of the Dept.
of State Security (DSE) who wear uniforms & drive patrol cars of the
National Revolutionary Police (PNR) as a diversionary tactic and
thus be able to transfer the activists to these detention centers where they
beat them with impunity.
· Subjected to repeated
arrests within a 24-hour period.
· Under arbitrary arrest and
detention that last for more than 24 hours
· Arrested and taken to
undisclosed locations; their whereabouts unknown to their families and
friends.
· Guarded and handcuffed for
hours. As a form of cruel & degrading treatment, their
hands are forced behind their backs with metal handcuffs or
plastic strips placed tight around their wrists to cause serious injury,
swelling, cramps, and fatigue.
· Pepper sprayed during arrest.
· Subjected to hours of
verbal and psychological torture as well as blackmail by the political police
who humiliate them while under arrest.
· Forced to remain hours locked up inside a sun exposed enclosed
patrol car under high heat temperatures.
· Detained in prison cells in unsanitary, inhumane conditions where
rats and roaches abound.
· Abandoned in the late
evening hours far from their towns and cities of residence in deserted
and dangerous areas where they could be assaulted and/or
raped.
· Are filmed by State Security agents.
· Issued “warning reports”
(actas de advertencia) that accuse them of delinquent behavior such as
“resistance”, “disorderly conduct”, assault (“atentado”) or “disobedience”
("desacato").
· Arbitrarily
accused of committing delinquent criminal acts such as “resistance”,
“disorderly conduct”, “assault”, “dangerousness” or “disobedience” and
imprisoned indefinitly without trial.
· Fined after being accused
of committing criminal offenses.
· Threatened to be taken to
prison if they do not stop their activism.
·
Activists and
their families are promised monies and privileges if they stop being part of
the human rights movement in Cuba.
· Robbed and beaten after they pick up money at Western Union sites,
that is sent to them from abroad by Cuban exiles who support their human rights
struggle.
· Forced to remain seated,
denied access to a bathroom, and to their own medication, food and water while
in detention
· The Cuban
flag is taken away from them as they go out to march and protest peacefully
onto the street.
The following 4 Ladies
in White were arbitrarily arrested and transferred to Cuban prisons for
peacefully exercising their civil rights in the island: Xiomara de las Mercedes Cruz Miranda,
Yaquelin Heredia Morales, Aimara Nieto Muñoz and Martha Sánchez González.
The following 15
activists were arrested and remain in prison without a trial: Miguel Borroto
Vazquez, Mario Alberto Hernandez Leyva, Leudis Reyes Cuza, David Fernandez
Cardoso, Lazaro Mendosa Garcia, Yuneth Cairo Reigada, Marietta Martinez
Aguilera, Aurelio Andres Gonzalez Blanco, Ibrahim Alemán Urrutia, Alberto Valles Pérez, Pablo Enrique Camero,
Ismael Boris Reñí, Yosvani Lemus Martínez, Yeusandro Ochoa Leiva, Felix Juan Cabrera Cabrera y Armando Peraza
Hernandez.
The Coalition of Cuban-American Women make the Cuban government responsible for the physical and mental
well-being of all members of the peaceful human rights movement who struggle
on behalf of freedom and justice for the Cuban people.
The lives of these human rights defenders and their families in Cuba are in
danger. We urgently ask ongoing solidarity for these brave men and
women in the island of Cuba from the international community: dignitaries,
journalists, NGO's and all men and women of good will in the world.
Human Rights Defender
Coalition of Cuban-American Women
