The regime unleashes repression all over the island

The regime unleashes repression all over the island
DDC | La Habana | 26 de Septiembre de 2016 - 20:39 CEST.

The Cuban regime launched a massive crackdown on the offices of the
Legal Information Center (Cubalex), headed up by attorney Laritza
Diversent, according to information received by DIARIO DE CUBA, just
hours after the European Commission formally proposed that the EU
countries support the political cooperation and dialogue agreement with
Havana, which would supersede the Common Position, in force since 1996.

Sources close to Diversent said that police forces raided the
headquarters and accused the entire Cubalex team of "economic crimes".

At 10 am in the morning two police cars arrived, along with 20 agents in
plain clothes, and a lady in a white coat who claimed to be a doctor.
They waited for the entire CUBALEX team to be inside the building before
commencing the operation.

They broke in through the garage door with a crowbar, and used a jimmy
to access the kitchen, confiscating all their technological resources,
computers, memories and hard drives – even those for personal use.

A week of intense repression

The week saw a wave of repression let loose across the Island against
many opposition and civil society organizations.

On Thursday the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU) reported the arrest of
23 activists and the imprisonment of one of its members, who would mark
"political prisoner number 43" from the organization.

On Tuesday, 20 September, police officers and State Security agents
prevented a dozen young dissidents from completing visa processes at
the Spanish consulate in Havana to travel to Madrid to take a training
course at the Instituto Atlántico.

That same day, the spokesman for Cuba's Independent Trade Union
Coalition, Iván Hernández Carrillo, reported that the political police
had deployed a large force to break up a meeting of several trade
unionists seeking to fuse the Island's three main labor organizations.

On Sunday, 18 September, repression was also perpetrated against the
Ladies in White: 27 women were arrested in Havana, along with several
activists with the #TodosMarchamos (We All March) campaign on the 71st
Sunday of the constant persecution of the organization's marches.

Another group of women was also harassed on Tuesday, when State Security
deployed forces near a house in which they were to hold a meeting, while
keeping the participants trapped in their own homes.

The women, coordinators of a numbers of projects, had planned to present
their work and draft a single document for submission to an upcoming
international forum.

Last Friday, meanwhile, the activist Marthadela Tamayo, a member of the
Committee for Racial Integration (CIR), was seized by political agents,
held and interrogated for eight hours. Her family and friends, unaware
of her whereabouts, reported her missing. Following her release Tamayo
spoke to DIARIO DE CUBA.

Another victim of the current clampdown was Lady in White Leticia Ramos.
On Saturday police searched her house for two hours.

At about 8:30 am 26 agents from the Interior Ministry showed up at her
home in Cárdenas, Matanzas, proceeding to seize magazines, a publication
of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and to arrest Ramos's
husband.

Leticia Ramos is now under investigation, accused of "public disorder."
The authorities will not allow her to leave her home.

Last week the authorities also arrested, beat and stripped three women
activists from the Partido Arco Progresista (PARP) who were on their way
to the Santuario de El Cobre. The activists wore T-shirts endorsing the
# Otro18 campaign, which seeks to promote candidates not backed by the
regime to run in the 2018 "elections."

Far from easing up on repression in order to secure international
approval, Raúl Castro seems bent on ratcheting it up.

Source: The regime unleashes repression all over the island | Diario de
Cuba - http://www.diariodecuba.com/derechos-humanos/1474915176_25575.html