Breitbart publishes news about a violent attack on UNPACU activists in their home in Havana.+ video.
30-03-2017
Breitbart publishes news about a violent attack on UNPACU activists in Havana:
Cuba: Thugs Beat Pregnant Pro-Democracy Dissident ‘in the Belly,’ Put Father in the Hospital By Frances Martel Breitbart March 29, 2017
Ángel López Figueroa seriously wounded in the attack
The activists in question are 52-year-old Ángel López Figueroa and his 18-year-old daughter Ariadna López Sotolongo, who is six months pregnant. According to Sotolongo’s father-in-law, who spoke to the Miami-based Martí Noticias, a mob formed outside the family home in Havana on Sunday night and began attempting to break into the house.
“They began throwing bottles at the house, that is when they hurt the father. They tried to open the front door, managed to pry it open and attack Ángel,” according to Roberto Pérez Rodríguez. Sotolongo, meanwhile, “received blows to the belly” and injured her hand trying to fight off the mob. Her 13-year-old sister also received unspecified injuries, according to Pérez.
Images UNPACU has circulated on social media of Figueroa after the attack indicate that he sustained grave injuries to the head and may be suffering a concussion.
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Pérez told Martí that his family struggled to convince their local clinic to take in the dissidents. “The doctor said things were not that way, that he had to [receive care] at the hospital… that the ultrasound had problems,” he explained. “Yesterday we had problems, today they told me the woman who had to work here didn’t come in today. That is how things are with us dissidents.”
The Cuban government often recruits civilian members of the Communist Party – not police – to commit “actos de repudio,” or “acts of repudiation,” against dissident headquarters. These acts typically involve mob attacks on unarmed dissidents in which they are pelted with garbage, physically attacked, tarred, and insulted with vulgar epithets.
Given its size and its presence throughout the island, UNPACU is one of the primary targets of the Cuban government’s repression efforts against the pro-democracy opposition, along with the Ladies in White and the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) dissident groups. UNPACU is believed to have more prisoners of conscience among their members than any other dissident group.