Dissidents mount protests outside Cuban prisons

The Ladies in White dissident group mounted protests Friday outside two Cuban prisons to demand the release of political prisoners.

The protests, which took place without incident, coincided with International Human Rights Day. This was the first time that the Ladies in White, comprising relatives of political prisoners, have demonstrated outside of jails, targeting the Combinado del Este and 15/80 penitentiaries, both on the outskirts of Havana.

Those prisons hold the 11 still-jailed members of the "Group of 75" dissidents rounded up in March 2003, according to Ladies spokesperson Laura Pollan.

Those 11 men include Pollan's husband, Hector Maseda, as well as Oscar Biscet and Angel Moya, husband of Ladies in White activist Berta Soler.

The Ladies in White organized Friday a new tactic, splitting up into three groups to take their demands for freedom and respect for human rights to the gates of the two prisons and also to the seat of the Cuban judiciary.

In the case of the protest at Combinado del Este, 15 of the women led by Pollan and carrying their usual gladioli as well as the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in their hands, shouted "Freedom!" and "Long live human rights!" before the prison gates.

Prison guards and visiting families of prisoners looked on in silence, Efe observed at the scene. The protest lasted about 15 minutes and afterwards the group went back to Havana in the taxis that had brought them.

Fifteen other Ladies in White did the same thing at the 15/80 prison and another similar group cried out for freedom and respect for human rights in front of the seat of Cuba's judiciary, several members of the dissident group told Efe.

A peaceful march Thursday by the Ladies in White was disrupted by some 200 partisans of the island's communist government.

The incident took place when members of the Ladies in White and a number of supporters were at the halfway point of their largely silent procession through Havana.

As they were passing the Coppelia ice-cream parlor, a number of government partisans began surrounding them and shouting such slogans as "Viva la Revolucion" and "This street belongs to Fidel."

From that moment dozens more people, mostly students, joined the crowd to hurl imprecations at the Ladies in White, who nonetheless were able to continue their march until they arrived at Martin Luther King Park, where they in turn shouted "Freedom" and "Long live human rights." EFE

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HAB02. Havana, Dec 10 - Members of the dissident organization Ladies in White protest outside Havana's Combinado del Este prison to demand the release of political prisoners.


(2010-12-11/Fox News)