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Leader of Daring August Protest on Steps of Havana’s Historic Capitol Building Arrested, to be Prosecuted by Cuban Regime
By Assembly of the Resistance

Sarah Marta Fonseca Quevedo detained along with other members of the pro-freedom Cuban Resistance

Sarah Marta Fonseca Quevedo at her home in Rio Verde, Boyeros, Havana.

Sarah Marta Fonseca Quevedo at her home in Rio Verde, Boyeros, Havana.

Cuba. September 27, 2011. Cuban Democratic Directorate. Cuban Resistance activist Sarah Marta Fonseca Quevedo is under arrest and facing prosecution at the hands of the Castro regime, reported members of her family. Well-known activist Fonseca Quevedo, president of the Pro-Human Rights Party affiliated to the Andrei Sakharov Foundation and spokeswoman for the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Civic Resistance and Civil Disobedience Front, led a peaceful protest on the steps of Havana’s historic Capitol building on August 23rd, 2011 that was caught on video, along with outspoken displays of support from bystanders.

 

On the morning of September 24, 2011, designated as the monthly “Resistance Day” by the Front, activists held a peaceful march in the Río Verde neighborhood of Havana’s Boyerps municipality. Bystanders joined in with the marchers’ chants, shouting “Down with Fidel,” and “Down with the Dictatorship,” according to a report by Sarah Marta Fonseca Quevedo, and Jorge Luis García Pérez “Antúnez”, secretary general of the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Civic Resistance and Civil Disobedience Front.

 

At approximately 6:00 p.m., as Resistance members prepared to engage in a nationwide pots and pans protest scheduled for that night, Castro regime political police forces organized a repudiation rally at the home of Fonseca Quevedo, where several activists were attacked, beaten, and detained. Among these are: Sarah Marta Fonseca Quevedo, her husband Julio Ignacio León Pérez, Jorge Luis García Pérez “Antúnez”, Hermógenes Inocencio Guerrero Gómez, Ramsés Miranda Camejo and Eriberto Liranza Romero.

 

“My parents’ situation at this time is that they want to try them for “Contempt” and “Assault”, which is not true. Tomorrow, you will be able to see that it’s not true through online video of the repudiation rally and the moment in which they were arrested. As of now, I know that my mother is being held at Cuarta del Cerro, and my father and Hermógenes at El Capri. They are to prosecute all three. The information about my mother reached me thanks to Odalis Caridad Sanabria, who contacted a person who was being held at Cuarta del Cerro. This person added that my mother was so badly beaten that she could barely stand. It seems her spinal column sustained an injury caused by a blow from State Security [agents],” stated Julito León Fonseca by telephone to exiled human rights activist Bertha Antúnez Pernet.

 

Additional highly important civic resistance actions took place this weekend, including pilgrimages by the Ladies in White to Our Lady of Mercy Church on Saturday, September 24, 2011 in spite of a violent State-Security led repudiation rally, and to Saint Rita Church on Sunday, September 25, 2011, where many members of the congregation dressed in white to show their solidarity.

 

On September 26, 2011, nonviolent human rights activists Yris Pérez Aguilera, Yaimara Reyes Mesa, Donaida Pérez Paseiro, René Ramón González Bonelli, Ramsés Camejo Miranda, Rodolfo Ramírez Cardoso, Yoani García Martínez, Julio León Fonseca (son of Julio Ignacio León Pérez and Sarah Marta Fonseca Quevedo) and Rodolfo Ramírez Hernández. In Santa Clara, activists Idania Yánez Conteras, Damaris Moya Portieles, Alcides Rivera y María del Carmen Martínez were also detained the same day.

 

Some activists are already in prison. National Civic Resistance Front members Yelena Garcés and Reinaldo Rodríguez Martínez, from Palma Soriano are awaiting trial; and activists from Resistance organizations in the East, including the Front and the Patriotic Union of Cuba: Miguel Rafael Cabrera Montoya, Alexis Kuan Jerez, Víctor Campa Almenares, Nivaldo Amelo Ramírez, José Enrique Martínez Ferrer, Alexei Aguirresabal Rodríguez and Bismarck Mustelier Galán. These activists were placed under provisional imprisonment after the August 28, 2011 raid on the home of opposition activist Marino Antomarchit Rivero in Palma Soriano, where an event to support the Ladies in White was being held.

 

Sarah Marta Fonseca Quevedo’s son made an international appeal calling for support for the León Fonseca family. In the early morning hours of September 26, through a telephone conversation, the head of the Rosa Parks Feminist Movement, Yris Pérez Aguilera, reported that several members of the Resistance were on their way to “Section 21”, the main political police unit in Havana, to demand information regarding the whereabouts of those activists who were detained. Moments later, they were all arrested, according to information provided from Havana by Yonart Avila Rodríguez to the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance.

 

“Those activists who were on their way to the offices of State Security were violently detained and brutally beaten. They are: Yris Pérez Aguilera, Donaida Pérez Paseiro, Yaimara Reyes Mesa, Mariblanca Avila Espósito, Heriberto Pou Ruiz, René Rouco Machín, Yovani Martínez Lemus and Julio León Fonseca. Ignacio, Sarah Marta Fonseca’s youngest son, has a cut on his right arm as a result of the struggle with the State Security agents who pounced on the house and damaged the blinds on the window”, added Avila Rodríguez.

 

The Assembly of the Cuban Resistance calls upon all people of good will to raise their voices in defense of the Cuban Resistance. We demand the immediate release of these civic activists who defend the freedom of the Cuban people, and we condemn the brutal repression taking place against those who demand respect for these basic liberties.

 

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