Thursday, March 18, 2010

The Damas de Blanco, undeterred

The Damas de Blanco held a demonstration marking the anniversary of the 2003 arrests of 75 dissidents, and it was broken up by Cuban security forces.

These are tactics we have seen before: a government reaction to show it controls the streets, and short-term detention instead of long-term imprisonment.

Herald story here; BBC has a one-minute video here showing the women chanting “Zapata vive” and being packed onto a bus; Penultimos Dias has a long roundup of news coverage and photos and a quote from Bertha Soler indicating that they were taken to the home of leader Laura Pollan, and have every intention of continuing their protests. Cuban Colada notes a Cuban complaint that U.S. and other diplomats are accompanying the women, engaging in “provocation.”

1 comment:

  1. "Broken up by 'security forces'"? And how, pray tell does the author know that the counter demonstrators were from MINIT? My observation is that a good percentage of Cubans revile these "dissidents" much as an American would likely despise pro Iranian protestors.

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