The leader of the Cuban dissident collective Damas de Branco, Berta Soler, was released this Monday (06) after a new detention of several hours, the fourth so far this year alone.
The police action — in which her husband, former political prisoner Ángel Moya, was also detained — took place at noon on Sunday, when opponents left the headquarters of the Ladies in White in the Lawton neighborhood of Havana, according to Moya in your Facebook profile.
The complaint includes a video that shows the moment of the arrest, carried out in the street by seven women dressed as civilians.
“During the arrest, several State Security repressors were recording with their cell phones,” Moya wrote.
Soler’s husband specified that this was the 38th arrest — every Sunday — since at the beginning of 2022 the leader of the opposition group decided to resume her Sunday protests, once the hardest phase of the coronavirus pandemic on the island has been overcome, to demand the release of political prisoners.
As in previous arrests, Soler and Moya were taken separately to police units in the municipalities of San Miguel del Padrón and Guanabacoa, respectively, where they were fined 30 Cuban pesos (the equivalent of US$1.25 at official exchange rate, R$6, 43).
According to Moya’s account, both remained confined in cells until they were released on Monday morning.
The former political prisoner once again denounced that, since January 2, he and Soler have had their mobile data services blocked and can only connect to the internet via Wi-Fi.
Berta Soler is one of the founders of the Ladies in White, a women’s movement that emerged on the initiative of family members of the 75 dissidents and independent journalists — including Moya — convicted during the 2003 wave of repression known as the “black spring”.
The European Union (EU) and the NGOs Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International have criticized this wave of arrests and convictions, qualifying them as political.
For their part, Cuban authorities claimed without evidence that the accused dissidents were violating national sovereignty by order of the United States.
The Ladies in White received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament in 2005.
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