HAVANA, Cuba – Berta Soler Hernández, a representative of the Ladies in White, said she will take to the streets this Sunday and try to attend mass, after being threatened by State Security with going to prison if she did any activity as a Lady in White.
According to the opponent, Lieutenant Colonel “Felo” warned her during her detention at the Cotorro police station, that the first time she went out to the streets for freedom of political prisoners like Dama de Blanco, would be in this case a “detention without return.”
“They can threaten me and not do it, but they can also threaten and do it, that depends on them, on the Department of State Security. Nothing that comes from the henchmen, from the executioner, is good for us human rights activists,” he told CubaNet Soler Fernandez.
If the leader of the Ladies in White is arrested this Sunday, she could be taken directly to jail or to the Vivac (depot prison) and could be charged with non-payment of finesas he made known to this medium.
“They can prosecute me for that. On other occasions they have told me that they would take me to court for not paying them, but they can also invent any crime and prosecute me,” he added.
Soler Fernández was released in the early hours of Tuesday, September 17, after being detained the previous Sunday near the headquarters of the Ladies in White, by agents dressed in plain clothes.
In the Cotorro unit, where she was in a semi-dark cell, agent “Felo” suggested that if she and her husband, former political prisoner Ángel Moya, stopped protesting, they could leave Cuba to see their family in the United States, and return.
“I think that this ultimatum that the Cuban regime is giving us, this possibility of temporarily leaving the country by removing the regulation, is being done to get rid of Berta Soler and Ángel Moya and also to liquidate or silence the Ladies in White, but they played that card very badly because I am not a person who enters into arrangements with State Security“, acknowledged the activist, who has been involved in political activism for 24 years.
“(The regime) is my executioner, it is the one that has been pressuring me, harassing me, threatening me, taking me to jail for years, and it is the one that has thousands of people imprisoned for political reasons. I will not make any deals with them and much less will I allow them to blackmail me,” he added.
According to Soler Fernández, “perhaps State Security has already received the order” that if she does not leave the country they will arrest her, this time on a charge.
“I will not be the first nor the last, we have five Ladies in White in there,” said the Cuban dissident, referring to political prisoners The Spanish version of the book, entitled “The Greatest Hits in the World”, was released on 28 May 2018. The book is a reproduction of an important historical work by the author.
“We are here ready, and if this Sunday is the last day, the only thing I ask of those who are watching me is that they never make a pact with the Department of State Security,” said the Lady in White.
Berta Soler has been part of the female opposition group since its creation in 2003. The movement has been the target of repression by of the Cuban regime Due to her peaceful work, many of her activists, like her, suffer constant harassment from the political police just for trying to get to mass every Sunday.
On one occasion, the opponent told CubaNet that the Ladies in White will continue to go out as long as there is one political prisoner. Demanding, not asking, the freedom of all of them, but also the freedom of the Cuban people. “On Sunday I will be on the street and may it be what God wants,” she stressed.
