Havana/Unlike other Sundays, the leader of the ladies of Blanco, Berta Soler, could attend Mass, this time for Ramos Sunday, in the church of Santa Rita, in the Havana neighborhood of Miramar. The dissident was accompanied by the head of the mission of the United States Embassy in Cuba, Mike Hammer, according to the opponent of social networks.
However, seven members of the women’s group were arrested for a few hours in their attempt to attend the event, said Soler, which referred to the day as the “seventh repressive Sunday” against that group in 2025.
In addition, he reported the arrests of several white ladies in the towns of Cárdenas y Colón, in the province of Matanzas, and another in Havana.
They all headed to Mass, as they usually do, to ask for the freedom of political prisoners.
The Ladies of Blanco movement arose at the initiative of a group of family women of the 75 dissidents and independent journalists detained and sanctioned in March 2003 to high prison convictions during the repression period known as black spring.
From then on, the wives, mothers and other relatives of those prisoners identified themselves for always dressed in white and, after attending mass in a Catholic temple, began to make Sunday marches to ask for their release and became a symbol of dissent.
In 2005, Blanco ladies received the Sájarov Prize for the freedom of conscience of the European Parliament.
