2012 Arrests
Roughly seventy members of the Ladies in White were detained on the weekend of 16-17 March 2012, including Berta Soler, the group's current leader. Many of them were arrested on their way to or from mass, which they customarily attend together before their Sunday protest march. All seventy were released without charges on 19 March. However, they were instructed by Cuba's secret police that they would no longer be allowed to protest.
A reporter for BBC News stated that protest groups like the Ladies in White were seeking to raise their profile in advance of an impending visit by Pope Benedict XVI—who is expected to discuss the issue of human rights with the Cuban government—and that the Cuban Communist Party was accordingly seeking to clamp down on protest.
On 21 March, Amnesty International designated imprisoned Ladies in White member Yasmin Conyedo Riveron and her husband Yusmani Rafael Alvarez Esmori as prisoners of conscience. The two had been arrested in January and charged with "violence against a state official" following an argument with a local Communist Party official. The pair were released on bail on 5 April.
On 9 December, police in Cuba arrested approximately 80 Ladies in White, allegedly using violence in detaining some of them. In all, 100 to 150 dissidents were placed under house arrest.
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“I claim that in losing the spinning wheel we lost our left lung. We are, therefore, suffering from galloping consumption. The restoration of the wheel arrests the progress of the fell disease.”
—Mohandas K. Gandhi (1869–1948)