Belkis Cantillo, Leader Of The Dignity Movement Released

Belkis Cantillo, Leader Of The Dignity Movement Released / 14ymedio, Luz
Escobar

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 23 January 2017 — The leader of the
Dignity Movement, Belkis Cantillo, who was arrested last Thursday was
released Monday afternoon, as confirmed to 14ymedio by Moraima Diaz, an
activist of the same movement.

Shortly after being released, in a telephone conversation with this
newspaper, Cantillo explained that she was given a warning letter that
he refused to sign.

According to the activist, the document stated that she could not "meet
with anyone" or be visited by "counterrevolutionaries." The police also
prevented her from carrying out "public demonstrations."

About her days in custody, she says that they removed the mattress and
that she was "sleeping on the cement" which caused an "increase of the
pain she already suffered due to renal colic." The activist reports
that, after insisting, she was visited by a lawyer.

After her release she was summoned to appear next Saturday before the
offices of the State Security in the municipality Julio A. Mella.

According to Moraima Díaz, members of the Dignity Movement cannot leave
their homes without State Security agents "persecuting them."

"We have agents at every corner of the house. It is a police siege to
which we are subjected," she adds.

"We have been told that if we leave the house, our families will be the
ones who will pay the consequences," she says from Palmarito de Cauto, a
town in the province of Santiago de Cuba.

"The situation here is extreme. The police have taken the town so that
there are no dissident demonstrations," says the activist.

The women of the Dignity Movement have experienced days of intense
repression since they created their movement in the Sanctuary of the
Virgin of Charity of Cobre on Saturday, January 14. They call for, among
other things, immediate and unconditional amnesty for all those who
today are serving prison sentences for "pre-criminal dangerousness" and
for this concept which they consider to be "arbitrary" to be eliminated
from the Penal Code.

Amel Carlos Oliva, youth leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba,
told 14ymedio that in the early hours of the morning the police raided
the house of Thomas Madariaga Nunez, 66, an active member of his
organization.

Right now, Madariaga is in custody.

Source: Belkis Cantillo, Leader Of The Dignity Movement Released /
14ymedio, Luz Escobar – Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/belkis-cantillo-leader-of-the-dignity-movement-released-14ymedio-luz-escobar/