Ladies in White attacked after Mass in Perico

HAVANA, Cuba, April 30 (Miriam Leiva, www.cubanet.org) – Three members of the dissident Ladies in White were attacked by police and private citizens following Sunday’s Mass in Perico, Matanzas province, according to one of them, Alejandrina García de la Riva.

García de la Riva, wife of political prisoner Diosdado Marrero, said she was accompanied by two other relatives of dissidents imprisoned in 2003, Saili Navarro, daughter of Félix Navarro, and Noelia Pedraza, wife of Ariel Sigler Amaya, Damas de Blanco, as well as friends.

She said after Mass in the Perico’s church she and the others were walking through the town’s streets carrying flowers when attacked by a crowd she said was organized by State Security agents, members of the political police and the national police. She said they were pushed and insulted before being able to board a bus at the bus terminal.

She said other Ladies in White in Pedro Betancourt were prevented by police from joining them in Perico.

Protestant preacher threatened by government

HAVANA, April 30 (Juan Carlos González / www.cubanet.org) – Protestant minister Tomasa Victoria Ayala said officials from the Justice Ministry showed up at her home last Sunday and prevented her from preaching that day, as well as threatening to remove her from the house.

Ayala said she was put on trial at the beginning of April but that a verdict has not yet been given.

The government does not recognize her sect, the Apostolic International Ministry of Fire and Dynamism because, she said, she does not support it.

Ayala said 20 of her followers would meet Sundays in her house, where she had lived for 29 years and finished buying two years ago.

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