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The three dozen “Ladies in White” who took to the streets of Havana on Human Rights Day on Thursday hoped to bring attention to husbands, fathers, and friends serving time in Cuban jails for speaking out.
But it was the government that made the strongest case that human rights are being trampled daily on the Communist island. Functionaries deployed bus and car loads of counter-protesters, who allegedly taunted and roughed up the demonstrators.
To further drive home the point that human rights would not be tolerated, the Cuban regime broke up another peaceful demonstration at a park in front of the UNESCO building.
Two of the demonstrators — Pedro Moises Calderin Tapanes and a man identified only as Rogelio — were reportedly whisked away and are deemed to have “disappeared,” according to a report in El Nuevo Herald.
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There are an estimated 200 political prisoners in Cuba, according to
the Human Rights Commission. One of those prisoners, freelance baseball
agent Juan Ignacio Hernandez Nodar, recently returned to Miami after
serving a 15-year prison sentence.
The protests came the day U.S. documentarian Estela Bravo’s
puff piece “Anecdotas Sobre Fidel” was screened in Havana.
“You get to
see Fidel a little more like he is,” Bravo said at the screening.
To get a better look, perhaps she should get off her ass and look out the window.
