Police applies absurd methods to repress a solidarity demonstration

Agents of the Cuban political police arrested a group of 9 dissidents, members of the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Civic Resistance and Civil Disobedience Front, in the city of Placetas, Villa Clara this Tuesday 26th of March when they were carrying out a public demonstration as part of the “Yris Tamara Perez and Calixto Martinez Cannot Die” campaign.  The officials used violence against the demonstrators and, upon seeing that they did not have sufficient police vehicles to take the detainees, decided to tie some of the dissidents to a nearby porch until reinforcements arrived.

Jorge Luis García Pérez ‘Antúnez’, secretary general of the OZT Front, witnessed the events and confirmed that they occurred during afternoon hours.  “These activists were carrying out a peaceful protest under the campaign to save Yris Tamara Perez and Calixto Ramon Martinez“, he recounted, explaining that the dissidents “took to the streets carrying signs with messages like ‘Justice for Yris and Calixto’ and ‘Don’t let them die’ when they abruptly assaulted and arrested by the police.  The agents violently threw them against the pavement“.

The former political prisoner identified some of the detainees as Julio Columbie Batista, Maikel Almenteros, José Lino Ascencio López, Yunier Santana Hernández, Luis Enrique Santos Caballero, Yanisbel Valido Pérez and Orlando Almaguer.

The solidarity campaign was launched this March by the OZT Front after Yris Tamara Perez Aguilera, wife of Antunez and president of the Rosa Parks Movement for Civil Rights, was beat unconscious by police agents, causing serious health complications.  Her problems intensified when doctors in different hospitals of Placetas and Santa Clara refused her admission or treatment under strict orders of State Security.  Yris remains with ailing health, without medical assistance and in danger of being beat again at any time, just for stepping out of her house.

Meanwhile, ‘Hablemos Press’ reporter Calixto Ramon Martinez Arias has been imprisoned for 6 months now because of his work as an independent journalist.  He declared himself on hunger strike this month and this Tuesday marked the 20th day of his protest.

The campaign demands medical attention for Yris Perez and the immediate liberation of Calixto Ramon, through demonstrations like vigils, protests, marches, etc.

“The police responded in a brutal and cynical manner“, added Antunez, as he explained that the usual methods applied such as beatings and arrests did not shock him, but he could not believe what he was seeing when “two of the activists- Yanisbel Valido Perez and Maikel Almentero Orama- were tied to a porch of a house located on Marti street when the police realized they did not have enough cars to take them all away at once“.

“This tells us that the regime is even losing the capacity to repress“, said Antunez.

Another protest with similar outcomes took place on Monday in the same city of Placetas when a group of dissidents from Camaguey, among them Daniel Millet Jimenez, arrived.  A number of other activities have been reported throughout the island as part of this new campaign in solidarity with Yris Perez and Calixto Martinez.

“There are more of those who protest than those who repress“, assured Antunez, who added that the campaign will continue with more strength, energy and activism until the objectives are achieved.

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For more information form Cuba, contact:
Jorge Luis García Pérez ‘Antúnez’- Cell Phone: +52-731-656 / Twitter: @antunezcuba

Police brutality leaves female dissident leader unconscious and hospitalized

It’s not rare for Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera to suffer a beating by uniformed agents in Cuba.  Both she and her husband, the renown dissident and former political prisoner Jorge Luis Garcia Perez ‘Antunez’, live under constant police vigilance, which does not allow them- the majority of times- to freely move throughout their own city of residence, Placetas, or throughout the country, for that matter.  And when they manage to surpass vigilant cordons and arrive to other destinations, they are eventually intercepted and deported.  This was proven once again on Thursday, March 7th 2013, when the activist was brutally beaten by State Security agents and left lying unconscious on a street in the city of Santa Clara.

Perez Aguilera, president of the Rosa Parks Movement for Civil Rights, was with other women of the group participating in the weekly march they carry out every Thursday to pay homage to Cubans who have died while trying to achieve freedom in the country, when the violence took place.  It was around 9 AM when the others were detained: Damaris Moya, Yanisbel Valido, Natividad Blanco, Ramona García and Yris Tamara Aguilera herself.

The women were taken directly to cells in different police units throughout the region, but agent Eric Francis Aquino Yera and one known as Misael kept Yris in a separate police vehicle, by herself, from which she was taken out, or better said- dragged out– by her hair and thrown against the pavement various times to the point that she was left unconscious after suffering blows to the head, according to declarations made by Antunez in an audio published on the YouTube account “PlacetasCuba100” (belonging to Yris Perez).

Minutes later, some neighbors showed up to the home of Damaris Moya in Santa Clara and told her husband, Yanoisy Contreras, that there was a person abandoned out in the road, passed out.  “We first thought it would be a drunkard”, said Antunez in the audio, “but when Yanoisy went to the corner of the block and saw that heart-wrenching scene, where Yris was just thrown there, bleeding and passed out… we urgently took her to the 20th Anniversary Hospital of Santa Clara”.

Yris’ condition was grave, which is why she was rushed to the Armando Milian Castro Hospital, located in the same city, where she was submitted to various exams.  However, the hospital authorities, in collaboration with State Security, expelled Yris Tamara from the hospital as soon as she gained her conscious back.

Upon arriving to Moya’s home, other dissidents who displayed solidarity with Yris were detained, among them Michel Oliva Lopez and Alberto Reyes Morales.  Others in Sagua la Grande, Villa Clara and Velasco, Holguin also were surrounded and arrested for protesting against the events.

“We are highlighting the seriousness of this situation”, said Antunez about his wife, “we hold the dictatorship accountable for the life of Yris”.

At around 7:30 PM it was reported, via Twitter, that when Antunez was taking Yris back towards Placetas, she suffered another loss of consciousness, as detailed in this other audio.

Due to the countless beatings she has received- product solely of political persecution- Perez Aguilera has developed a cyst in the lower back part of her neck.  She frequently suffers migraines, dizziness spells and other sharp pains due to this wound which she has not been able to tend to medically.

Eric Francis Aquino Yera, one of the agents who attempted against the life of Yris this Thursday, is the same official who, in 2012, threatened to rape the 5 year old daughter of Damaris Moya- Lazara Contreras.

The attack against the president of the Rosa Parks Movement comes the day prior to International Women’s Day, celebrated around the world.

These beatings have not managed to force Yris Tamara Perez Aguilera to give up her fight in the past, which gives rise to an important question- what is the real news here?  Is it the fact that the dissident was repressed? Or, rather, that she keeps going out to the streets demanding rights for all Cubans, despite whatever kind of consequence?  

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For more information form Cuba, contact:

Jorge Luis García Pérez ‘Antúnez’ – Cell Phone: +52-731-656 / Twitter: @antunezcuba

 

Tweet by Tweet, censorship cracks in #Cuba

Twitter’s “blue bird” perched over Cuba. Taken from internet.

Each day, there are more Cubans who, through the “internet without internet”, use Twitter to narrate the real Cuba and to shatter censorship. They are dissidents, bloggers, intellectuals, farmers…Cubans hailing from diverse corners of the country. It’s difficult for them to send out these messages, considering that it costs 1 dollar (an elevated amount for Cubans), and yet, they still do it.

The following are a couple of follow recommendations of new or recent Twitter users, straight from the island:

Maydelis González Almeida

@maydeliscuba1

Resident of Quemado de Guines, Villa Clara, member of the Cuban Reflection Movement. She and her family are constantly persecuted by the political police but they continue defying the dictatorship out in the streets.

Carlos Michael Morales

@CarlosMCuba

An independent journalist and alternative blogger (‘El Amante de la Libertad’), Carlos Michael is also a member of the Central Opposition Coalition. He has used his account to denounce cases of political repression, social issues and achievements by pro-freedom activists.

Isael Poveda Silva

@IsaelCuba

Member of the Eastern Democratic Alliance and of their information agency ADO-Press, Isael Poveda tweets from Guantanamo, narrating the reality of that Eastern region: cholera outbreaks, signs which appear in public with anti-regime messages, public marches, evictions, and more.

Santa Gonzalez Pedroso

@santacuba1

A very brave Cuban woman, member of the Rosa Parks Movement for Civil Rights, she carries out frequent public protests alongside other dissidents in Grua Nueva, Ciego de Avila. Santa Gonzalez does an excellent job on Twitter denouncing human rights violations in that area and documenting the growing level of opposition.

Eliecer Palma

@eliecerpalma1

Tweeting from San German, Holguin, Eliecer just opened his account, promising important news from the Cuba ignored by the state media. Palma has been reporting important social issues, like a recent massive strike by carriage drivers in San German.

Yanisbel Valido Perez

@YanisbelValido

One of the most active young dissidents in the city of Santa Clara, Villa Clara province. Valido Perez is the representative of the Cuban Rafters without Frontiers Movement and member of the Rosa Parks Movement for Civil Rights. She is frequently arrested by the political police but does not stop carrying out public activities in favor of freedom, nor does she stop informing about them on her account.

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These were just some of the new Twitter users from Cuba. Everyday there are more. Give them a follow!

Regime Attacks Dissidents But Cannot Impede Tributes to Laura Pollan

Laura Pollan’s daughter Laura Labrada (left) and Berta Soler. October 14th, 2012.

This Sunday 14th of October, the year anniversary of the death of Laura Pollan, leader of the Ladies in White, operations unleashed by the police forces of the Cuban regime produced numerous arrests throughout the island, but such actions were not able to impede the activities carried out in honor of Pollan.

A wide range of tributes were reported in the country since Berta Soler, representative of the Ladies in White, announced a week of activities last October 7th.

For example, that same day women carried out their traditional march along Havana’s 5th Avenue and screamed slogans like “Laura Pollan Lives“, while dissident Martha Beatriz Roque Cabello managed to arrange a daily Mass throughout the week in the San Juan Bosco Church in Havana in memory of the fallen leader of the Ladies in White.  In the eastern town of Manzanillo, where Laura was born, various human rights activists met at the cemetery where part of her ashes remain and carried out a prayer vigil and deposited several white gladiolus flowers, the symbol of the peaceful struggle of the Ladies in White.

The actions continued all week in other regions: Holguin, Baracoa, Bayamo, Matanzas, Santa Clara, and Pinar del Rio, among others.

On Saturday the 13th, the Ladies in White held a meeting in their headquarters, situated in Pollan’s home on Neptuno Street, in Havana.  Many of these women were arrested or kept from leaving their homes so that they not arrive to the encounter, but 18 of them were able to carry out the activity.

Marta Díaz Rondon, a Lady in White from the Eastern municipality of Banes, in Holguin province, was one of the women who were present.  Diaz Rondon had to leave days before in order to arrive to the capital, where she managed to surpass numerous police cordons and arrive to the group’s headquarters.

Diaz says that the activity was carried out in an atmosphere of peace in the house, as the women “lit candles in front of pictures of Laura Pollan and deposited various flowers”.  Meanwhile, outside the atmosphere was not the same.  The regime organized mobs around the home which consisted of state police agents in civilian clothing and various pre-university students and even dancers who tried to make the act of repudiation seem like a simple “celebration” before the eyes of the international media.

Not only did the mobs blast pro-government music, but their members also shouted insults and obscene words at the women.  The Ladies in White simply responded by singing the national anthem and shouting such slogans like “Laura Pollan Lives” and “Free Cuba“.

Nearby streets were closed off by the police and all traffic was re-routed to keep any other activists from arriving to the encounter.

On the following day- Sunday the 14th- a number of women throughout the country were reported as detained.

In the case of Sara Marta Fonseca Quevedo, the renown dissident recounted that her home was surrounded by political police agents since 1 AM to keep her from leaving her house and joining the peaceful march to the Santa Rita Catholic Church.  Neighbors told her that uniformed officials were keeping a tight vigilance over all the corners of the Rio Verde neighborhood of Boyeros, Havana, where her home is located.

“In addition, the agents had the objective of keeping any other dissident from arriving to my house to pay our own tribute to that grand leader that was Laura Pollan Toledo“, said Fonseca.

Meanwhile, the State Security agents Sanper and Alejandro ‘visited’ the headquarter of the group and threatened the women, telling Berta Soler that the Ladies in White could not march.  However, Soler and Laura Labrada Pollan (Laura’s daughter) told the agents that they would not accept their instructions and they went out anyway and carried out their march with 48 women.  They were accompanied also by other figures of the opposition like Hector Maceda (former prisoner and husband of Pollan), Ofelia Acevedo (widow of Oswaldo Paya), Antonio Rodiles, Hugo Damian Prieto and former political prisoners Ivan Hernandez Carrillo and Arnaldo Ramos.

Hernandez Carrillo was reporting from the scene of the activities through his Twitter account: @ivanlibre.

A group of women from Santiago de Cuba managed to surpass numerous police cordons and arrive to the Santa Rita church, joining the group of more than 40 women who had already arrived.  Meanwhile, back in Santiago, another 30 women made it to the El Cobre Shrine.

In the central city of Santa Clara, 6 women from the Rosa Parks Movement for Civil Rights were violently arrested when they were showing solidarity with the Ladies in White by trying to assist Mass in La Pastora Church.  The detainees were Idania Yánez Conteras, Damaris Moya Portieles, Yaite Cruz Sosa, Ana Rosa Alfonso, Xiomara Martin Jiménez and Yanisbel Valido Pérez.

Idania Yanez explains that the women were dressed in white- as a form of solidarity, as these women always wear black during their protests- and that they were dragged off the bus they were aboard while they were “beaten“.

“State Security official Yunier Monteagudo Reina and other agents intercepted the bus we were traveling and started to physically assault us“, detailed Yanez, “Yunier hit Damaris Moya in the face and broke her lips… they dragged us throughout the floor, they shoved us and then they detained us and took us to the local police unit“.

The activists from the Rosa Parks Movement started to shout slogans against the government and others in honor of Laura Pollan while they were being assaulted.

Yanez said that at no point did the everyday people demonstrate hate towards them.  Instead, they looked at the events in horror and demonstrated their solidarity with the protestors.

Other activists were arrested as was the case of  Angel Moya Acosta and Raul Borges, among many others, but the internal opposition achieved their objective:  honoring Laura Pollan, that Lady who made the Cuban regime tremble with just a flower, demanding peace, freedom and justice.

Moment in Which Women from the Rosa Parks Movement were Brutally Arrested Caught on Audio

Via the blog of Antunez- “I will not shut up, I will not leave”:  Female dissidents from the Rosa Parks Movement for Civil Rights who had plans to march through the streets of Santa Clara today, February 1st,  were brutally beaten and arrested by State Security agents during their peaceful protest against impunity.

Idania Yánez Contreras, member of the Rosa Parks Movement, was able to provide an audio, via telephone, of the moment she and other women were going out to protest in the street.  Towards the middle of the audio, once can hear the women being violently arrested. 

Below is the audio (in spanish) followed by a translated transcription:

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Moment of March for Freedom and Against Impunity in Santa Clara, and audio of Brutal Arrests

febrero 1, 2012 por antunezcuba

Voice of Idania Yanez Contreras, the president of the Central Opposition Coalition and member of the Rosa Parks Movement for Civil Rights.  February 1st, 2012.

“Here we are in the headquarters of the Central Opposition Coalition, located in Prolongacion of Marta Abreu 93rd A e/B and C in the Virginia neighborhood, in the city of Santa Clara. This march takes place every 1st day of each month.  Right now, we are surrounded by a large number of State Security officials and police agents.  We dedicated the past march to demand the freedom of Ivonne Malleza Galano and her husband Ignacio Martinez, and we are dedicating this one to demand the freedom of Yazmin Conlledo Riveron and her husband Yusmani Rafael Alvarez Esmoris, who are both currently unjustly jailed since January 8th, and being accused of false charges.  But we are also taking advantage of the occasion to celebrate the 99th birthday of the person who we have named our movement after- Rosa Parks.

From the municipality of Placetas, these are the women participating today: Xiomara Martín Jiménez, Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, Yaité Diosnelly Cruz Sosa

From Santa Clara: Yanisbel Valido Pérez, Damaris Moya Portieles, María del Carmen Martínez López and myself,  Idania Yánes Contreras.

We are carrying a blanket with the phrases “March for freedom and against impunity”,  “Freedom for Yazmin Conlledo and Yusmari Alvarez, unjustly imprisoned”, “Rosa Parks Movement”, and “Long Live Human Rights”.

Right now we are walking out of the house, we know that we are not going to be able to walk very far, they are already there…they are looking at us and well, we are starting our march.

(…)

Freedom for Yazmin Conlledo Riveron and Yusmani Rafael Alvarez Esmoris!

Freedom!

Long Live Human Rights!

Down with Repression! Down!

They are arresting us!…

(Loud and disturbing screams of pain and of protest, voices of different women)

Take your hands off of my breasts, you murderer, take your hands off my breasts, murderer, human rights violator.  Do not hit me, you murderer, stop hitting me.  They are going to kill us!

Take your hands off of my breasts! Take your hands off you henchman! Do not touch my breasts! Stop, murderer!

(Voice of one of the agents speaking to another): She has a cell phone, there it is!

You murderer, get your hands off of my breasts!

The call is cut at this moment.

Minutes after the arrest, Barbara Moya, mother of Damaris Moya Portieles (one of the women arrested) and witness of the brutal aggresions against these women, said:

“The State Security officials and the National Revolutionary Police ran up to these women and pushed them.  The women sat down on the floor as a sign of civic protest and each woman was attacked by 6 to 7 police officials, who picked them up from the floor and aggressively pushing them, that’s how the political police acts in this country.  There were about 20 or 30 officials for these women from the Rosa Parks movement.

We were recording everything that they were doing to the women.  State Security officials took out a bed sheet and were putting it in front of the camera to try and keep us from recording.  We told them that the world was going to find out about all of this, because even if they put that sheet over the camera, we were able to record something”.

The “War of Wearing Out”: Increase Violence, Destroy Symbols to Martyrs

“This will be a war with the aim to wear you out“, that’s what the new political police chief in Placetas- Raul Acare Martinez- told Antunez while the latter resided in a jail cell during his most recent detention.  Martinez signaled that “every time you all (dissidents) go out to the streets, you will all continue to be arrested“.

Antunez has confirmed this, as he has been victim of 3 arrests (of 72 hours in length) in just one month.  The most recent one was on Tuesday, November 8th, when 14 dissidents from the Central Opposition Coalition and the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Resistance Front met up in a public location in order to carry out a peaceful sit-in in solidarity with Alcides Rodriguez and Rolando Ferrer, both of who were in hunger strike at the time.  In addition, it was also a demonstration of solidarity with the savagely beaten Idania Yanez and various other dissidents who remain imprisoned for political reasons in Santiago de Cuba.

“As soon as we concluded that activity and we started to walk back to my house, we were violently repressed and taken to the police unit“, explains Antunez, emphasizing the cases of various of his brothers and sisters in struggle who suffered health complications, such as Xiomara Martin Jimenez who suffered “a serious hypertension crisis” and the blind activist Jose Angel Vazquez who was treated just as ruthless as the others.  In the case of Antunez, relatives were informed that he was also experiencing various complications during his second day behind bars.  “I regularly suffer from hypoglycemic problems, and I grew very dizzy, had tachycardia, and strong pains in my chest“, he narrates.

Political Police agents 'hunting for dissidents' in Placetas. Taken from Antunez's blog "Im not leaving, im not shutting up"

The dissident from Placetas adds that his sister, Caridad Garcia Perez Antunez, who is not even a dissident, was “beaten and arrested along with her 15 year old daughter” as they walked in front of his home, trying to find out what was happening to her brother.

After 72 hours, all the non-violent demonstrators were released but the ‘war to wear out’ was clearly underway.

Since the weekend and Monday the 14th, the home of Antunez “has been target of a massive police operation, where no one is allowed to walk in front of the house, passing cars are diverted and they are asking all neighbors for identification“.  Despite this, numerous activists were able to surpass the police circle and met up to re-inaugurate a monument to the fallen Orlando Zapata Tamayo (which was debuted a few months ago during the ‘Zapata with Us’ campaign) which was destroyed by the political police last October 24th, during the Day of the Resistance.

Though some dissidents were present, many were detained, deported, or impeded from traveling.  Among those arrested were María del Carmen Martínez López and Yanisbel Valido Pérez (Rosa Parks Movement for Civil Rights, Central Opposition Coalition) and among those deported were Yaimara Reyes Mesa, Lorenzo Hernández García, and Blas Agusto Fortun Martínez. Many other activists, from other provinces, were not able to make it due to the strong police operation in their towns which would not let them mobilize, as was the case of Ricardo Pupo Sierra from Cienfuegos.

Regardless, among those present were “from Camaguey, Santo Fernandez Sanchez and Leonardo Garcia Tomas from the Independent and Democratic Cuba Party (CID), and coming from Banes, Rene Quiroga, Aurelio Antonio Morales, and Vivian Tamayo Ramayo from the Eastern Democratic Alliance, and from Ciego de Avila Julio Columbie Batista“, informed Antunez.

The vigilance, the threats, and the repression on behalf of government agents has not ceased, but regardless, the activists carried out the planned activities.  “Though many could not be there with us, there was still a significant number of people present,” affirms Jorge Luis Garcia ‘Antunez’, “and, in addition, Zapata was there with us in heart and in spirit“.

Antunez and other members of the Cuban resistance throughout the island have proved that even if the war unleashed against them by the dictatorship is trying to wear them out, they will not tire.

Dissident Testimonies: Hospital Break-In, Savage Beating, and Arrest

Yris Tamara Aguilera, Antunez, Idania Yanez

The last group of Cuban dissidents who were brutally attacked and arrested by the political police this past 31st of October in the Arnaldo Milian Castro Hospital of Santa Clara were released this 3rd of November.

Activist Jorge Luis Antunez explains that the purpose of such a congregation of more than 15 dissidents in the hospital was to demonstrate solidarity with hunger strikers Alcides Rodriguez and Rolando Ferrer who had been urgently rushed to the hospital after 29 days of their ongoing protest.  Also, the dissidents wanted to accompany Idania Yanez, wife of Alcides Rodriguez.

“It was a completely peaceful atmosphere among the dissidents, we were there in solidarity“, recounts Antunez, continuing, “After a while, my wife Yris and I head upstairs to the B-Medical Room, Bed 11 to keep Alcides some company.  It was then that we received a call from Idania from the lobby.  She was telling us that government agents were entering the building- they were political police and Rapid Response Brigade agents, sent to arrest dissidents“.  The dissident from Placetas shares that he did not think that the officials would go to the point of breaking into the intensive care center where there were many gravely-ill patients- men, women, old and young.  However, the agents paid no attention to this.

The police officers broke into the room and “brutally arrested us without telling us a thing, savagely beating us at the same time”.  The couple was then dragged throughout all of the hospital to the outside and shoved inside police vehicles.  “While they were dragging us“, narrates Antunez, “we could hear screams of patients and those accompanying them, protesting against the situation“.

Both Yris and Antunez were taken, while being beat, to the Police Unit of Caibarien.

Idania Yanez, Damaris Moya, Yanisbel Valido, Rene Quiroga, and others were also victims of physical aggression and an arbitrary arrest.  The Assembly of the Resistance, an umbrella group of dissident organizations in and out of Cuba, published a testimony, through the Cuban Democratic Directorate’s website, of the horrors Damaris Moya went through.  In the testimony, Moya denounced that both she and Idania Yanez were dragged from a police vehicle to the police center known as “UPOC”.  Moya explains that in the case of Yanez, she was taken into the Unit by various agents who were “punching her on her abdomen, on her head, and all over her body“.

The report continues, “I was able to break free from a female agent who held a tight grip on me and I ran towards Idania and Yanisbel.  Yanisbel was being choked, she had turned very red.  They were continuously punching Idania.  It was then that a guard from Guamajal- a very tall and corpulent woman- hit me on my head.  I fell hard against the prison bars.  At that moment, my hands and feet began to grow numb.  My feet were swollen and I couldn’t move.  They left me on the floor and they once again pounded Idania, punching her and dragging her into a jail cell“.

The officials then turned to Damaris and began to kick her while on the floor.  She couldn’t get up.  They sat her on a chair and were screaming at her to get up.  “A doctor came and opened my eyes and then told me I didn’t have anything.  They continued the same thing.  They screamed at me to get up.  They grabbed my hair and hurled me to the floor, chair and all.  I was once again dragged, by the hair as usual, but only one of them was grabbing my hair, the other two were kicking me at the same time.  They threw me into a cell where there was a red ant pile and I was just left there after they tore off my clothes and left me in my underwear“.

According to Moya, the functionary who ordered so much violence against these women was Yuniel Monteagudo Reina, a State Security agent.  The dissident also recounts that Idania was savagely beaten on the face and on her eyes, which caused her to swell up.  Yanez was also bleeding from her back.  She had a long scratch which Moya speculates could have not been done with a hand or nails, but instead with some sort of object.

Idania Yanez was taken to the State Security Barracks of Santa Clara while Damaris was taken to the Unit of Encrucijadas, where she carried out a protest, refusing to eat any food or drink any liquids, despite the constant threats and insults.  She was released Wednesday night.

While all these dissidents were being tortured and arrested, the hunger striker Rolando Ferrer was kicked out of the hospital while Alcides Rodriguez remained alone.  For that reason, on Tuesday November 1st Guillermo Farinas, a veteran in his own right with hunger strikes, head out to visit his brother in struggle at the hospital.  The political police did not allow Farinas to enter the hospital and they also beat him aggressively.  He remained detained until the morning hours of November 3rd.

During that same afternoon of the 3rd, all the dissidents who were still arrested during this operation were released, except for Idania.  Information about her whereabouts and condition was very scarce which led to various activists- Damaris Moya and Antunez among others- to declare that if by 5 PM Idania had not arrived to her house, they would carry out a protest in the streets of Santa Clara all the way to the detention center in which she was being held.  Shortly thereafter it was reported that Yanez was released but her family took her directly to the hospital due to the fact that she had suffered countless severe physical blows and was in a very bad state of health.  According to her mother, who denounced the violations her daughter suffered, the last few times Idania has been detained she has ended up in the hospital afterward because of all the blows she has suffered.

“I am very concerned about our beloved sister in struggle, Idania Yanez, because she has been severely injured“, declared Antunez- a worry he shares with all his other brothers and sisters in struggle, “We are all holding the Castro dictatorship accountable in regards to what may happen to Idania“.