Two leaders in the peaceful Cuban resistance movement who were released on the week ofDecember 12-18 after being subjected to violent arrests and inhumane prison conditions declared that the Cuban regime is intimidated by the rise and strength of the human rights groups in the island. Jose Daniel Ferrer García (released Dec.12), leader of the umbrella group UMPACU, (Cuban Patriotic Union) in Eastern Cuba, and Angel Moya Acosta (released Dec. 14) who resides in Havana and is the main coordinator of the National March for Freedom, Boitel Zapata Viven! were both beaten and arrested on December 2, 2011 in the eastern town of Palma Soriano as they were setting out to march peacefully with 50 activists. (Photos of activists beaten in attachment)

Video sent from Cuba of repression December 2, 2011:

Both Ferrer García and Moya Acosta are ex-prisoners of conscience of the 2003 Cuban Black Spring who refused conditional freedom and exile to Spain and remained in Cuba after their release from prison in February (Moya Acosta) and April (Ferrer Garcia) of 2011.

Ferrer Garcia says that the peaceful Cuban resistance is presently more organized and has gained visibility among the Cuban people, thus becoming a threat to a regime that is carefully planning ways to stop the activists in spite of the political cost. Moya Acosta stated that the political police is acting incoherently in the face of their peaceful actions and he doesn’t dismiss the possiblity of another wave of repression similar to the one in 2003.

Ferrer García vowed that, though they don’t have a date yet, the third attempt of the National March for Freedom, Boitel Zapata Viven! will go forward. He added that as long as there is no freedom, democracy or respect for human rights in Cuba, the peaceful resistance will continue to activate the march as many times as needed.

The National March for Freedom, Boitel Zapata Viven! originally kicked off from the historical Eastern city of Baracoa on September 12, 2011, where activists faced the same brutal repression. The march recalls the time when Cuba’s struggle for Independence in 1895 was spread from East to West by the patriots Antonio Maceo and Maximo Gomez. The intention of this march today is to unite the peaceful resistance and its three objectives are that:

1. The Cuban regime respect, promote and publish the Universal Declaration of Human Rights as well as ratify the international agreements that promote these rights.

2. The repression against the opposition and the Cuban people stop.

3. All Cuban political prisoners are released unconditionally and that the legal framework that propitiates these imprisonments be revoked.

An important premise of this march is that the activists will never accept that their homes become “prisons”. When paramilitary officials surround these homes to prevent the activists from leaving and forcing them to be under house arrest, the activists will come out of their homes and continue carrying out their peaceful actions as planned.

On Sunday, December 18, in spite of the regime’s deployment of agents, a total of almost one hundred Ladies in White atended Mass and marched throughout Cuba in the cities of Holguin, Santiago de Cuba, Matanzas and Havana.

The Coalition of Cuban-American Women alerts the international community that the lives of those members of Cuban civil society who are actively and publicly struggling on behalf of fundamental freedoms are in danger. We make an urgent call on religious, civic, political, and cultural entities and its leaders, as well as to non-governmental human rights organizations worldwide.

EMILIO DINZA - Activista herido - 12-02-2011

MISAEL VALDES DIAZ - Activista herido 12-02-2011

Coalition of Cuban-American Women / Joseito76@aol.com / Laida A.Carro

FURTHER INFORMATION IN CUBA: Angel Moya +5353820595 / Berta Soler +5352906820 / Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia +5353631267 / Belkis Cantillo + 5353790867