Ladies in white

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The Ladies in White ( Spanish Movimiento Las Damas de Blanco "Laura Pollán" ) are a group of Cuban women who campaign for human rights in their home country.

The women's group of the Cuban opposition came into being in 2003 as an association of relatives and partners 79 journalists critical of the government, opposition politicians and human rights activists (the so-called “Group of 75”) who had been arrested in the context of the Cuban state violence of the “ Black Spring ” and sentenced to long prison terms and for their liberation the group fought with the Cuban government. As a result of this publicly fought, especially internationally well-known fight and the sometimes violent persecution suffered by the Cuban state organs, the women in white became Cuba's most famous human rights group . With the release of the last of the political prisoners arrested in 2003 in March 2011 and the temporary departure of a large number of its original members, the group has not ceased its activities, but continues to protest against human rights violations by the Cuban government in public demonstrations. In honor of their spokeswoman, who died in October 2011, the ladies in white added the addition " Laura Pollán " to their group names a few days later .

activities

Sunday demonstration of the ladies in white in Havana (April 2012)

The largest group of women in white marches every Sunday in the Cuban capital Havana with gladioli in hands along Quinta Avenida after attending mass in the church of Santa Rita de Casia in the Miramar district. Similar but much smaller and less noticed activities are carried out in other parts of the country. The ladies in white wear white clothing, which symbolizes both peace and the innocence of the men and sons arrested. Until they were released, the women carried pictures of the prisoners with them to publicly draw attention to their fate. Over the years, the immediate relatives of the political prisoners have been joined by numerous sympathizers - the so-called Damas de Apoyo (“support ladies ”) who take part in the silent marches. In order to avoid infiltration of the group by Cuban secret service employees, however , the Damas de Apoyo are not involved in the decision-making process of the actual women in white , who are made up solely of partners and direct female relatives of those arrested in spring 2003.

The women in white emerged after their first representatives joined the Sunday meetings of the “Leonor Pérez” mothers' committee (see separate section below) in the Church of Santa Rita on March 30, 2003 and encouraged other members of the “Group of 75” to do so . The name Damas de Blanco was used from around June 2003 after it was introduced by an independent journalist in a report on the women's demonstrations. Only about three or four of the women in white had been critical of the government before their husbands or male relatives were arrested. Many of the women first met in or on the outskirts of the secret service headquarters, where the arrested were interrogated.

By March 2011, the 79 members of the opposition who had been arrested in 2003 and subsequently sentenced to long prison terms were released early on parole. The greatest number of them and their relatives left for Spain immediately, which was suggested to them by representatives of the Cuban and Spanish governments and the Catholic Church in Cuba. In Spain there is now the majority of the original women in white who maintain contact with the rest of the group who remained in Cuba as well as publicly advocating the rights of the peaceful opposition in their homeland. In the run-up to the Pope's visit in 2012, the group had intensified its activities and around 30 people were temporarily arrested.

Since completing the eight-year-long layoffs, the Ladies in White have redefined their group as a movement of civil resistance open to all Cuban women. They want to continue their public protests against the government and continue to campaign against all kinds of human rights violations in their country. In particular, the traditional phenomenon of machismo , which is widespread in Cuban society and politics, is to be fought and the position of women to be strengthened. In addition, they want to appear outside of Havana. According to its own information, the group is growing in several parts of the country, in Havana there are 82 women in white , in the eastern province of Santiago de Cuba 34 (as of August 2011).

Separation of the "Citizens for Democracy"

In September 2014, the human rights group “Women Citizens for Democracy” (Spanish: Ciudadanas para la democracia ) was formed in the eastern Cuban province of Santiago de Cuba . When it was founded, the group consisted of around 30 out of 60 women from former relatives of the women in white who had recently left the organization led by Berta Soler in the dispute. Citizens for Democracy is led by Belkis Cantillo, who, as the wife of the political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer at the time, was one of the founding members of the Women in White in 2003 and later acted as the organization's representative in the east of the country. Obstructed by the Cuban State Security and numerous temporary arrests, the citizens for democracy continue the practice of Sunday protest demonstrations at the pilgrimage church of the Virgen de la Caridad del Cobre near Santiago and advocate the same goals as the remaining women in white .

Controversy and referendum 2015

In the first few months of 2015 there were violent disputes within the group, which mainly focused on Berta Soler's management style. A video of an internal dispute that became public via the Internet led to protests by group members abroad. Soler then had an internal group referendum held in March on her whereabouts as spokeswoman, in which only members living in Cuba were entitled to vote, who confirmed Soler in their office with a large majority. The procedure did not, however, overcome internal criticism. Laura María Labrada Pollán, daughter of long-time group spokeswoman Laura Pollán, announced that she was distancing herself from the group and prohibited her from using her mother's name as an addition. Labrada justified this step with the behavior of the spokeswoman Soler, which is contrary to the principles that Laura Pollán has always defended. In connection with the departure of “Laurita” Labrada, the group lost its previous seat in March 2015 in the former home of the late Laura Pollán in the centrally located Centro Habana district. Shortly thereafter, the women in white moved into a house they had bought in the Lawton district, which has since served as the meeting place and headquarters of the group and as such has repeatedly been the scene of arrests and other repression by the authorities.

Reactions

The women's group has attracted the attention of the international public through its actions. The regime is closely monitoring the association through the State Security Service and has so far responded with a strategy made up of several measures:

  • In the state-controlled media, the ladies in white are regularly portrayed as enemies of Cuba, whose actions are part of the aggressive US policy against Cuba. The group members were repeatedly defamed as greedy for money, but also denigrated as "ladies of NATO". In principle, the Cuban media do not give those attacked the opportunity to comment on the allegations or to present their own arguments, and there is also no such thing as a legal counter- representation , which is established in many constitutional states . In April the Spanish website Cubainformación TV, set up to defend the international image of the Cuban government, published an article depicting the organization as divided and its leadership corrupt. The members of the group, whose interview statements were shown in a two-minute video accompanying this claim, later stated that they had been deceived by the creators and distanced themselves from the article and the statements, some of which were shown in a falsified context. However, the website did not report the rejection of the allegations by the interviewees or the group.
  • In addition, the authorities organize numerous so-called Actos de Repudio ("rejection campaigns"), for which government supporters (in civilian clothes) are gathered in large numbers in front of the apartments of the opposition in order to cover them with personal insults, political chants and sometimes projectiles without that the police would prevent this. According to official reports, these intimidation measures are spontaneous expressions of popular anger. In a similar way, several of the silent marches of the ladies in white were hindered and blocked (in individual cases for up to seven hours) until the government, mediated by the Catholic Church, put an end to the blockades on the traditional, roughly three-kilometer march route in May 2010 on Quinta Avenida . After one and a half years of tolerance by the authorities, the traditional, peaceful march of around fifty women in white after going to church in Havana-Miramar was blocked for the first time on December 11, 2011 by a crowd of people gathered to intimidate the demonstrators.
  • As a reaction to the demonstrations (outside the vicinity of the Santa Rita Church) and to prevent them, the Cuban authorities are resorting to the means of temporarily arresting women in white . After a significant increase in such arrests, the authorities estimate lasster violence and intimidation, among other international human rights organizations called Amnesty International and Human Rights First , the Cuban government recently in September 2011 to on to end such repressive measures and the Ladies in White no longer in to prevent them from conducting their peaceful marches and attending church services.

Within the broad spectrum of the Cuban opposition, the women in white occupy a prominent position, as they are the only ones who have succeeded in getting their public protests to be tolerated by the authorities - albeit within narrow limits. Prominent Cuban artists who live in Cuba and are among the supporters of the political system represented by the government have also expressed their respect for the women in white since 2010, for example the musician Frank Delgado . The musicians Carlos Varela and Pablo Milanés each went a step further and expressly condemned the acts of violence committed against the women in white in the name of the revolution.

Prominent members

Speakers for the ladies in white are:

Berta Soler, 2013
Sylvia Wähling ( Cottbus Prison Memorial ) welcomes Berta Soler and Yaquelín Boni Echevarría to the Fidelio premiere on June 28, 2014 in Cottbus
  • Berta Soler , wife of the dissident Ángel Moya , who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in April 2003 (following previous convictions) and who was released on parole in February 2011. After Laura Pollán's death in October 2011, Soler became the group's spokeswoman.
  • Blanca Reyes , wife of the poet, journalist and dissident Raúl Rivero , who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in April 2003 and was released on parole in November 2004 for health reasons. Both went into exile in Spain shortly afterwards . Reyes has been the women's representative in Europe since then . In this function, she accepted the Sakharov Prize in 2006 and the Atlantic Council Freedom Prize in 2010 (see section Awards ).
  • Yolanda Huerga , wife of the poet, writer and independent journalist Manuel Vázquez Portal , who was sentenced to 18 years in prison in April 2003 and who was paroled in June 2004 on health grounds. Together with him, she went into exile in Miami in June 2005, where she represents the Women in White as spokeswoman for the United States.

Other prominent members:

Laura Pollan
  • Laura Pollán , wife of the nuclear physicist, journalist and dissident Héctor Maseda , who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in April 2003 and who was paroled in February 2011. At the time of her death in October 2011, she was the leader of the group, which she honored by including her name in the group name after her death. During her lifetime her house often served as a meeting place for the ladies in white and after her death it was declared the official seat of the group.
  • Miriam Leiva , wife of the dissident Óscar Espinosa Chepe , who was sentenced to 20 years in prison in April 2003 and was released on parole in November 2004 for health reasons. In August 2008, Leiva announced the end of her work with the women in white , to whom she, as a co-founder of the association, however, would remain connected “in friendship and solidarity”. She will no longer participate in the regular activities, but will devote her time to her work as an independent journalist. Alongside Soler, Leiva was one of the 13 government critics whom US President Barack Obama met for a confidential exchange of views on the sidelines of his state visit to Havana in March 2016 .
  • Reina Tamayo , mother of the dissident Orlando Zapata , who was arrested again in March 2003 (after previous convictions) and sentenced in several trials to a total of 25 years in 2006 , who died in custody in February 2010 after a hunger strike. Tamayo left Cuba with twelve relatives in June 2011 and has lived in the USA ever since.

Awards

  • In April 2005, the women in white were awarded the Pedro Luis Boitel Freedom Prize, which has been awarded annually since 2003 by Eastern European and Latin American human rights activists to representatives of the Cuban democracy movement.
  • In November 2005 the group received the IX. International Human Rights Prize of the Fundación Hispano Cubana
  • In June 2006 the women in white were awarded the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought 2005 by the European Parliament . The Cuban government initially prevented the representatives of the group invited from Cuba from leaving the country to receive the award in Strasbourg . After the liberalization of the exit regulations in Cuba, the award ceremony took place on April 23, 2013.
  • 2006: Human Rights First Award (formerly "Lawyers Committee for Human Rights")
  • October 2010: Freedom Prize from the American think tank Atlantic Council
  • April 2011: "Human Rights Defender" of the US State Department
  • May 2013: “ Václav Havel Prize for Creative Dissent” from the Human Rights Foundation

Cuban and international role models

As a human rights group supported by women, the women in white have a long tradition: The best-known examples of women's groups of the 20th century outside of Cuba - each identified by their own color - include, for example, the suffragette suffragettes (Great Britain and USA), the anti- Apartheid movement Black Sash ("Black Sash", South Africa) and the opponents of the occupation of Palestinian territories Women in Black (Israel and other countries). The most prominent group in Latin America are the Madres de Plaza de Mayo (Argentina), who wore white headscarves as a distinguishing feature during their protest demonstrations.

Even in Cuba itself, under the Batista dictatorship, there was a protest movement supported by the mothers and sisters and imprisoned by the opposition, which at the time was not hindered from their right to demonstrate, but through street demonstrations under the banner of Madres Cubanas (Cuban mothers) the Cuban public opinion influenced and so promoted the overthrow of the regime. In 1957, after the assassination of Frank País , the leader of the July 26th Revolutionary Armed Movement responsible for the urban struggle, the US ambassador even had himself photographed for the media with members of the Mothers' Association. A joint committee of relatives of the prisoners generated considerable pressure on the government through the media, which was still independent at the time, and through parliamentarians, which contributed significantly to the amnesty announced in 1955 for those sentenced to prison terms after the armed attack around Castro.

"Leonora Pérez" maternal committee for the freedom of political prisoners

At the time the group Women in White was formed , a similar organization already existed: the “Leonor Pérez” maternal committee for the freedom of political prisoners . It was initially formed in 1991 on the initiative of the mothers of some of the political prisoners imprisoned at the time and was re-established in 2000 with new participation - the mother of the national hero José Martí , the spiritual father of Cuban independence and also political prisoners (the then Colonial power Spain). The activists, mostly dressed in black skirts, white blouses and black scarves, had already chosen various churches as locations to raise awareness of their concerns. On the advice of human rights activist Elizardo Sánchez Santacruz, the mothers' committee met from 2002 in the Santa Rita Church in Miramar, in whose catchment area many employees of embassies as well as foreign media and companies live and work and the resulting special international attention and comparatively greater protection against repression the authorities cater to churches in other neighborhoods. The Quinta Avenida leading along there is also an important traffic artery that connects the western residential district, in which the highest representatives of the state live, with the city center and the government district, which gives additional visibility. The "Leonora Pérez" mothers 'committee continues to exist independently of the women in white , who originally referred only to the release of the "Group of 75", while the "Mothers' Committee" has been demanding a general amnesty for all political prisoners since it was founded. Members of the mothers' committee belong to the Damas de Apoyo who support the women in white .

National Movement for Civil Resistance "Pedro Luis Boitel"

In 1997 relatives of political prisoners founded the National Movement for Civil Resistance "Pedro Luis Boitel" in the city of Placetas ( Province of Villa Clara ). They followed the founding of an association within the prison, which had also named itself after the political prisoner Boitel, who died on a hunger strike. The stated goals were the formation of a solidarity support network of relatives to protect the rights of all prisoners, the amnesty of all political prisoners and the critical observation of the observance of human rights including the dissemination of complaints in cases of their violation. The resistance movement organized numerous protests in front of various prisons and collected a total of 5,000 signatures by 1999 for their call for a general amnesty for political prisoners.

See also

Web links

Commons : Ladies in White  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ http://www.rp-online.de/politik/kubas-damen-in-weiss-trotzen-der-gewalt-aid-1.5820272
  2. ↑ a b Ladies in white: Carta Damas de Blanco Declaration of the Damas de Blanco of October 18, 2011, in the Damas de Blanco blog of June 7, 2012, accessed on July 17, 2012 (Spanish)
  3. ↑ Tracey Eaton: Las Damas de Apoyo speak out In: Along the Malecón, May 30, 2011, accessed June 12, 2011
  4. ↑ a b Pedro Pablo Arencibia: Las Damas de Blanco y retornar a sus principios fundacionales in: La Nueva Patria ( undated ), accessed on October 9, 2011 (Spanish)
  5. ↑ Germán Acero: María Elena Alpízar, la mujer que buildizó a las “Damas de Blanco” in: Libre Online from April 4, 2011, accessed on October 9, 2011 (Spanish)
  6. ↑ El origen de las Damas de Blanco, emblema de la protesta contra el régimen de los Castro in: Infobae.com of April 25, 2010, accessed on October 9, 2011 (Spanish)
  7. ↑ Spain: "The White Ladies" from Cuba . Video from ARTE Journal from August 13, 2010, accessed on June 12, 2011
  8. ^ Police arrested "Women in White" , NZZ, March 19, 2012
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  10. ↑ Damas de Blanco: “Ahora somos un frente feminista defensor de los derechos humanos” in: Cuba Encuentro from September 20, 2011, accessed on October 11, 2011 (Spanish, with video)
  11. ↑ Las Damas de Blanco se redefinen como un movimiento más abarcador ( Memento of October 25, 2011 in the Internet Archive ) in: Martí Noticias of September 19, 2011, accessed on October 11, 2011 (Spanish, with audio)
  12. ↑ Castro vs. the Ladies in White in: Wall Street Journal of August 29, 2011, accessed October 11, 2011
  13. ↑ Un grupo de Ex Damas de Blanco crea Ciudadanas para la Democracia, in: Europa Press of September 12, 2014, accessed on December 22, 2014 (Spanish)
  14. ↑ Domingo de respiro para las Damas de Blanco, in: 14 y medio of December 22, 2014 (Spanish)
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  40. ↑ Las 'Damas de Blanco' cubanas, galardonadas con un premio por defender los derechos humanos . In: El Mundo of April 5, 2005, accessed September 26, 2011
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  54. ^ Pedro Luis Boitel National Civic Resistance Movement. ( Memento from July 19, 2012 in the Internet Archive ) In: Directorio Democrático Cubano , accessed on November 16, 2013 (English)
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