Ladies in White are detained for the third consecutive Sunday in Cuba

Several people from the Cuban dissident collective Ladies in White They were arrested this Sunday, the third in a row by the communist regime’s police, when they went out to protest demanding the release of the prisoners for the anti-government marches of July 11, 2021, dissidents reported on social networks.

Among those detained are the leader of the Ladies in White, Berta Soler, and her husband, opposition figure Ángel Juan Moya, who were temporarily arrested as they left the organization’s headquarters in Havana.

Moya denounced on Facebook that they were violently arrested, held in police stations for about eight hours and then released after imposing a fine.

Other ladies in white, such as Caridad Burunate, reported similar situations on Facebook.

Two weeks ago the Ladies in White announced that they would resume their Sunday protests to demand the release of political prisoners, after the break forced by the pandemic.

On the first Sunday, at least six women, including Soler, were arrested as they left the organization’s headquarters in Havana and released the following day. Last Sunday Soler was the only detainee.

So far, neither the authorities of the Cuban communist regime nor the official media have confirmed the facts.

The Ladies in White movement emerged in 2003, as a result of a wave of repression by the Cuban government that was called the black spring. Two years later they won the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament.

The EU and NGOs such as Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International criticized that wave of arrests, calling them political. The Cuban authorities condemned them alleging that they attempted against national sovereignty on orders from the United States.