Ladies in White march in Havana. Photo by Angel Moya Acosta (@jangelmoya)
A total of 177 Ladies in White marched in different provinces of Cuba this past Sunday, June 16th, dedicating the walk to Father’s Day, according to a tweet publish by former political prisoner of conscience Ivan Hernandez Carrillo (@ivanlibre).
In Havana, 58 women made it to Mass in the Santa Rita Church and afterward marched down 5th Avenue, demanding freedom for all political prisoners. The Ladies celebrated Father’s Day together with various male dissidents which accompanied them.
Leticia Ramos, representative of the female group in the province of Matanzas, told Sayli Navarro that a total of 22 women marched there. Navarro published the information on her Twitter account (@SayliNavarro).
2 women were able to march and participate in Mass in Ciego de Avila.
Ivan Hernandez also tweeted that a total of 62 Ladies in White marched in Santiago de Cuba and made it to Mass in the National Cobre Shrine.
In other Eastern provinces various women marched and made it to Mass. In Guantanamo 12 managed to do so and in Holguin another 15 did. However, in Holguin, specifically in the municipality of Banes, Gertrudis Ojeda Suarez was arrested when she tried to leave her house to march to church. Ojeda denounced that the same thing happens to her every Sunday and that they are “completely arbitrary detentions“. Other arrests were reported in Eastern Cuba, while other women marched in that same area.
This Father’s Day, the situation of the numerous political prisoners who are unjustly behind bars in Cuba was highlighted. The majority of these prisoners happen to be fathers. Among the cases are that of Ramon Munoz Gonzalez, husband of Sonia Garro (also a political prisoner) and president of the Independent Afro-Cuban Foundation, dissident rapper Angel Yunier Remon Arzuaga “El Critico” who is the father of a little girl who is just months old and Osvaldo Rodriguez Castillo who is in prison for creating a new dissident group and for protecting his son from participating in military service (his son Osvaldo Rodriguez Castillo is also in prison). These are just three cases. There are many more like them. And it’s for these Cubans that the Ladies in White march.
