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mia

(8,356 posts)
Sun Mar 20, 2016, 03:34 PM Mar 2016

Cuba arrests dozens of human rights protesters before Obama's arrival

Source: USA Today

HAVANA — Just hours before President Obama is scheduled to land in Cuba on Sunday for his historic visit to the communist island, Cuban authorities arrested more than 50 dissidents who were marching to demand improved human rights.

Members of the group, known as the Ladies in White, are used to the routine. They march each Sunday after mass at a church in a suburb of Havana called Miramar and usually get arrested and detained for hours or days.

But some in the group thought that Cuban authorities would back off on this Sunday out of respect for Obama's visit. Berta Soler, one of the founding members of the group who has been marching since 2003, said while walking to the church Sunday morning that maybe they would be allowed to protest without getting arrested....

But despite the presence of dozens of international reporters in town for Obama's trip, the group was quickly rounded up in buses and police cars....



Read more: http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2016/03/20/cuba-dissidents-protesters-arrested-president-obama-visit/82048950/

16 replies = new reply since forum marked as read
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Mika

(17,751 posts)
2. FYI, none were arrested nor handcuffed, nor assaulted. They were doing a sit-in ...
Sun Mar 20, 2016, 03:45 PM
Mar 2016

... in the middle of an intersection blocking traffic for attention during the Obama visit. They were removed for that, not for "speaking out". But, many useful idiots - observing that they were removed from blocking a main traffic artery - report that they were removed for trying to express themselves.

In the past, the "Ladies" in White have pulled stunts like this - were removed - were taken to their homes by buses, and were ticketed for obstructing traffic. The fine? $6.
US media reports, like faithful corporate servants, that they were removed by force by Castro's thugs for "simply speaking out".
Bunk!

I really hate to inform Americans that if your group of 50 people decide to block a main intersection in the heart of a city, they probably will be arrested and charged with some crime, and probably beaten and pepper sprayed in the process. That has not happened to the "Ladies" in White (who are on the NED's, the IRI's, Freedom House, the Diaz-Balart family, and more, payrolls to "report" on Cuba's abuses for the US taxpayer & privately funded cubanet dot org).

The virulently anti Castro Cubanet is funded $185,000 per month. Berta Soler is paid $2000 a month to produce anti Cuba propaganda on our dime. By Cuban standards, she had become very wealthy on Cubanet's payroll.






Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
4. Good points, thanks, Mika. Except, of course,
Sun Mar 20, 2016, 05:00 PM
Mar 2016

that blocking an intersection is very much "speaking out" their message. Let's respect that. And, yes, the difference between what you describe and what might happen here is to be admired, and emulated.

 

Mika

(17,751 posts)
5. They were not arrested. Speaking out.. they do that every day.. were removed for blocking traffic.
Sun Mar 20, 2016, 05:08 PM
Mar 2016

Yes, they have a message. There are many venues for them to espouse it ... especially with US gov't dollars funding their "dissent".

FYI, I lived in Cuba. Return often to visit friends and family.



Hortensis

(58,785 posts)
6. Nuance is unclear - but "no message" noted.
Sun Mar 20, 2016, 05:14 PM
Mar 2016

They just like to be in the middle of things and got used to the attention, and funding, maybe.

I envy you. I'd love to be able to say I lived in Cuba. And, of course, I'd love to visit often. Maybe now and then eventually.

brooklynite

(93,878 posts)
7. Remember when OCCUPY WALL STREET focus were arrested for blocking traffic?
Sun Mar 20, 2016, 09:02 PM
Mar 2016

I seem to recall a different reaction.

Baobab

(4,667 posts)
12. if thats true its a good point
Mon Mar 21, 2016, 10:09 AM
Mar 2016

Don't block traffic, 99% of the time its a huge tactical mistake.

BTW, censorship in the US by various entities of news stories is at all time highs I am sure right now.

 

Reter

(2,188 posts)
8. I thought Cuba killed their protestors, like in Saudi Arabia
Sun Mar 20, 2016, 09:05 PM
Mar 2016

Last edited Sun Mar 20, 2016, 10:37 PM - Edit history (1)

Guess I was mistaken. I didn't think they had anyone going against the government.

Judi Lynn

(160,219 posts)
10. Who gave you that idea? Please post a link, if you've got one.
Mon Mar 21, 2016, 04:33 AM
Mar 2016

In the meantime, it wouldn't do you any harm to brush up on your Latin American history long enough to remember the U.S. has supported all the right-wing bloody dictatorships all over South and Central America from the very first, including the biggest "killing" of protesters, or suspected leftists, AFTER unbelievable torture, by taking many of them in airplanes or helicopters out over the Atlantic, or simply above a big river, and throwing them out to tumble through the sky, usually chained to each other, into the water. From time to time their bones would eventually drift ashore, but not usually. They called this "disappearing," which happened after they kidnapped these people off the streets, or from their houses, wherever they could find them.

The female suspected leftists who were pregnant were still tortured, but they were allowed to give birth, sometimes by C-Section if the authorities were in a hurry, then they took the infants and gave them to politically favored families in Argentina, usually military, and took the new mothers up above the Atlantic or a convenient river and threw them out of airplanes or helicopters, too, to never ever see their young ones they just delivered again.

The mothers of these men and women who were taken and tortured who had children who were stolen were called the Grandmothers of the Plaza de Mayo, and they bravely protested and tried to move the government to tell them how they could find their missing grandchildren who had been born in prison to their missing daughters. The Argentinian military dictatorship, which was being advised by US Secretary of State Kissinger at the time, sent inflitrators into the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo organization, decided which of these women seemed to be the most effective, then they took THEM away, tortured them, and threw THEM out of airplanes or helicopters, including two French nuns who sympathized for the grieving mothers of their missing daughters and infant grandchildren.

Many of these grandchildren have, in recent years, wanted to take bloodtests and be reunited with the families of their murdered parents, and have returned to their biological grandparents, aunts, uncles, cousins, siblings, etc.

The US sent the notorious U.S. torturer, Dan Mitrione, to Uruguay to teach the police how to torture leftist dissidents. He would have the cops sweep the streets, pick up people, then bring them into the sound proof room he had prepared, and he would give instructions using tools he had delivered to him secretly in the diplomatic pouch to the U.S. embassy.

Here are some of the immortal words of this fine man, to whose funeral US President Richard M. Nixon sent his own son-in-law, and high-ranking officials:


"When you receive a subject, the first thing to do is to determine his physical state, his degree of resistance, through a medical examination. A premature death means a failure by the technician.

"Another important thing to know is exactly how far you can go given the political situation and the personality of the prisoner. It is very important to know beforehand whether we have the luxury of letting the subject die...

"Before all else, you must be efficient. You must cause only the damage that is strictly necessary, not a bit more. We must control our tempers in any case. You have to act with the efficiency and cleanliness of a surgeon and with the perfection of an artist..."


More:
http://www.dailykos.com/stories/278459/full_content

[center]

Love,
Dan Mitrione [/center]
Then, of course, was the monstrous torturer, fascist dictator Pinochet in Chile. You really should take some time learning about how Richard M. Nixon, Henry Kissinger, and the C.I.A. "made the economy scream" as Nixon termed it, making the country so desperate economically they were turned against a leftist President they had elected by a landslide because the US didn't want him there.

One of the less painful things Pinochet did was send his "Caravan of Death" around the country, helicopters filled with high ranking officers who looked up people they wanted to murder, and set about firing them all into the great void. Had they been less lucky than that, they would have been taken to one of the 11 or more TORTURE CENTERS around Chile, and tortured wildly, like the father of the current President of Chile, who was a high-ranking General loyal to the ELECTED President Allende, (he died in prison, of course), the current Chilean President and her mother who were also tortured, but released, even a crematory was engaged to help with the overflow, and it was a common sight for Chilean citizens to see bodies floating rapidly down the river which ran through town in Santiago, Chile, dividing the city in half.

[center]



A painting to memorialize citizens grieving for their lost murdered children during Pinochet. [/center]
This is only a scratch on the surface.

After the oldest witnesses to right-wing debauchery, depravity, monstrosities, atrocities have died, the very ones who would oppose the fascists' return so intensely are gone, and the next wave of putrid, amoral, cowardly, slimy right-wing thieves are free to make another bid for power.

This represents only so little of what has happened. I haven't mentioned the military in Peru which was sent into the mountains to tell the villagers they suspected of supporting rebels to dig a big hole, telling them they would fill it with fish, then, when the villagers had completed their job, told all the villagers to stand by the pit, and shot them all, and threw them into the big hole, and buried them.

Going to El Salvador in Central America, as one small example, you will learn things happened like the right-wing military death squads going to a campesino home, murdering the people who were there, then placing them in their chairs around their table, with their heads placed directly on the table in front of each seated body, all arranged for their relatives to discover when they returned to the home.

These events are real, they have been recorded, they are repeated endlessly, you should really spend some of your time trying to develop a conscience, and find out what has been done, instead of believing what drivel you've been told by people who have no idea, themselves.

You can make the difference in your life, if YOU do the homework, if YOU get busy and start searching, do it in earnest, as if it matters, as it really does, and find out the real answers for yourself.

Then you will actually know about the subject you hope to discuss.

Thank you.

Dopers_Greed

(2,640 posts)
9. Is this really THAT shocking?
Mon Mar 21, 2016, 01:59 AM
Mar 2016

Worse things regularly happen to protesters than merely getting "arrested."

Hell, one of our presidential frontrunners calls for violence against them.

 

Mika

(17,751 posts)
14. They weren't even arrested. They were given $6 citations.
Mon Mar 21, 2016, 11:27 AM
Mar 2016

Like a traffic ticket for blocking an intersection.


 

YOHABLO

(7,358 posts)
11. It's very hypocritical for the Right in the U.S. to point out human rights violations in Cuba.
Mon Mar 21, 2016, 04:59 AM
Mar 2016

PersonNumber503602

(1,134 posts)
16. Doesn't civil disobedience usually lead to arrests?
Mon Mar 21, 2016, 03:07 PM
Mar 2016

Isn't that kind of expected? Based on the video, it appears as if they were in the middle of a road protesting. Protesters seem to forget that they are violating the law in an effort to bring attention to whatever their cause is, and the price of that is usually arrest. Unless there is evidence that they were shipped off to camps and not released in a reasonable time, then I don't see how this is an unexpected result.

I do find it interesting how many people who were upset or angered by protesters here being arrested and/or broken up when they took similar action here in the US. And vise-versa. Such as how people supported them being arrested here, but then criticize this move by Cuba.

Why is it so difficult to hold all everyone to the same standards? Just to be clear, this isn't directed toward you specifically. I have no idea where you stand on these issues. I'm just making some general observations.

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