Cuban Opposition Activists Take to the Streets to Commemorate Student Martyr’s Death in Spite of Harsh Repression

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Cuban Opposition Activists Take to the Streets to Commemorate Student Martyr’s Death in Spite of Harsh Repression
By Cuban Democratic Directorate

Audio recording of repudiation rally attack: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j-8STYKxEy4

Placetas, Villa Clara. May 28, 2008. Cuban Democratic Directorate. On Sunday, May 25, more than 20 Cuban opposition activists from Cuba’s central provinces meta t the home of human rights activist and former political prisoner Jorge Luis García Pérez "Antúnez" to concluye the Pedro Luis Boitel Activism Memorial being held in Cuba since May 13. Early in the afternoon on May 24, State Security secret police units launched an operation to block access to the activist’s home to the dozens of other opposition activists heading there, and to impede the activities they had planned to carry out later on the streets of Placetas.

Around 4:00 PM, the opposition activists, who represented organization from Villa Clara, Matanzas, Cienfuegos and Sancti Spíritus provinces, left Antúnez’s home, located at Séptima del Sur # 5, between Paseo de Martí and Primera del Este, in a procession bearing aloft a Cuban flag. The march was to culminate in a symbolic burial and tribute to student leader Pedro Luis Boitel, a political prisoner who was allowed to die on a hunger strike in 1972 by the Cuban regime still in power. Upon exiting the home, the activists were intercepted by State Security agents wearing military uniforms who blocked the route a block and a half away. The activists linked arms and formed a human chain, solemnly singing the Cuban national anthem as the secret police agents attacked them violently, kicking and later arresting them.

Antúnez was forced into a police car by himself, which then departed to an unknown location, while the other activists were taken to the National Revolutionary Police Unit in Placetas. As these arrests took place, Iris Pérez Aguilera, a human rights activist and also the wife of Antúnez, was the victim of a repudiation rally organized by State Security and the Rapid Response Brigades, who recruited people from marginal neighborhoods in the city.

Minutes before heading out onto the street, Antúnez managed to establish contact with the Cuban Democratic Directorate, stating that, “We stand firm, resolved to carry out our planned activities. We are calm, and will not allow ourselves to be provoked. If an incidence of violence occurs, they, the agents of repression who are posted in the street to try to silence our voice, will have instigated it. Boitel lives!”

In spite of the intense and organized repression of the Castro regime, Cuban internal opposition activists achieved twelve days of tributes to Pedro Luis Boitel during the Activism Memorial, which spanned the dates of the student martyr’s birth and death, May 13 and May 25, respectively. The Activism Memorial began with a pilgrimage to Boitel’s unmarked tomb in Havana. The Boitel Activism Memorial took place throughout Cuba, as reflected in dozens of activities reported to the Information and Support Center, part of the Non-Cooperation with the Dictatorship Campaign’s “Twelve Days of World Solidarity with Cuba: Toward the Republic” effort.

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