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Cuban State Security Agents Arrest Three Activists Supporting Placetas Hunger Strike
By Cuban Democratic Directorate

Santa Clara. March 10, 2009. Three Cuban civil society activists were arbitrarily arrested Tuesday morning, March 10 in Santa Clara. Idania Yánez Contreras, president of the Central Opposition Coalition, Alejandro Tur Valladares¸ an independent journalist from the Jagua Press agency based in Cienfuegos, and Félix Gutiérrez, an independent journalist from the Cubanacán Press agency were on their way to the city of Placetas to support a three week-long hunger strike there  when they were detained, according to a brave telephone call made by Yánez Contreras while locked inside National Revolutionary Police patrol car #254.

 

“We are at the UPOC, the Police Instruction Unit. I am in patrol car 254. They detained us as we exited my house, in front of the butcher shop. They tell us that we cannot go to Havana, but we were going to Placetas. They pushed me into the patrol car,” stated Yánez Contreras before an officer ripped the telephone from her hands. Yánez Contreras is six weeks pregnant.

 

The Cuban Democratic Directorate condemns the increasing repression of the Cuban opposition movement and the people in general by the Castro brothers’ totalitarian and military regime. We call upon international human rights organizations and the world’s democratic governments to condemn these arrests and support Cuba’s nonviolent freedom activists.

 

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