A New Women’s Opposition Group is Born in the East: Citizens for Democracy

A New Women's Opposition Group is Born in the East: Citizens for
Democracy / 14ymedio
Posted on September 11, 2014

14YMEDIO, Havana, 10 September 2014 – A schism with the Ladies in White
has given birth to a new women's group called "Citizens for Democracy."
Last Monday, during the feast of the Virgin of Charity of Cobre, the
recently created movement held it's first public activity with a
pilgrimage of seventy women to the Sanctuary of Cobre in Santiago de Cuba.

Citizens for Democracy is led by Belkis Cantillo and consists mostly of
women from Palma Soriano, Palmarito del Cauto and the city of Santiago
de Cuba itself. At least thirty of them come from the Ladies in White
group, from which they separated some days ago because of disagreements
between Berta Soler and Cantillo herself.

The reason for this separation was explained as "gross indiscipline"
allegedly committed by several members of the Ladies in White in the
eastern area of the country, which provoked the removal of Cantillo as
local representative of the movement. Soler, for her part, declared that
"every person can join or found a party or a group if they feel badly in
another and if they are not able to abide by the rules of the Ladies in
White."

Belkis Cantillo was a member of the Ladies in White from its origins in
2003 after the imprisonment of 75 dissidents in the so-called "Black
Spring." Her ex-husband is the opponent Jose Daniel Ferrer, who heads
the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU).

Berta Soler hopes that the Citizens for Democracy will "succeed as human
rights activists."

Source: A New Women's Opposition Group is Born in the East: Citizens for
Democracy / 14ymedio | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/a-new-womens-opposition-group-is-born-in-the-east-citizens-for-democracy-14ymedio/