49 Cuban opposition activists severely beaten, arrested in Palma Soriano. By Marc R. Masferrer.
49 Cuban opposition activists severely beaten, arrested in Palma Soriano
By Marc R. Masferrer
December 2, 2011
Cuba "experts" and others who don't care about the essential dictatorial nature of the Castro regime get giddy about every time a new "reform" is announced.
Cuban opposition activists just get beaten.
Cubans like the 49 activists who on Friday were beaten -- some severely -- and arrested in Palma Soriano, Santiago de Cuba, to block them from participating in an anti-government march, according to Cuba Democratic Directorate."When they came out there were police outside, the political police, they fell to blows, kicks, punches with tonfas (batons). They were seriously injured, covered in blood," said Liliana Rodríguez Palomo, the sister of one of the detainees.
Those arrested included two members of the Group of 75 dissidents arrested during the "black spring" -- Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia and Angel Moya Acosta. (Ferrer's brother Luis, also a former political prisoner now in exile, first reported the arrests on Jose's Twitter feed.)
(Cuba Democratic Directorate has the names of the other activists arrested here.)
Governments and others around the world sympathetic to and/or ignorant about the regime's defining qualities are waiting to see what reforms Raul Castro will institute next.
The Cuban people are waiting for freedom.
CDV note: CubaEnmcuentro has reported that 27 were later released, dropped off on the road a few at the time, and far from Palma Soriano. Ferrer and Moya were at the time of CubaEncuentros reporting still detained. Some detained had been taken away from arrest in ambulance. News about the 26 detained in Guantánamo the day before Palma Soriano has not arrived.
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