Date Issued: March 28, 2006

A mob of several hundred individuals besieged the home of human rights defender Isel Acosta for more than four hours on March 17, banging on windows and doors, shouting insults and making threats against her life. The Cuban government has organized mob assaults against its critics in the past, and there are indications of official involvement in this incident, as well.

Isel Acosta is a member of the ‘Ladies in White,’ an organization of the wives and relatives of the 75 activists imprisoned in the spring of 2003 during a severe crackdown on nonviolent human rights activists. Their persistent and peaceful protest is gaining growing international attention.

In response, Cuban authorities have stepped up their persecution, threatening harm to their imprisoned husbands if they do not cease their protests, or assembling violent mobs outside their homes to intimidate or even attack them.

The mob that formed outside Isel Acosta’s home successfully prevented her from attending a commemoration ceremony marking the three-year anniversary of the imprisonment of the seventy-five activists. Her husband, Blas Giraldo Reyes, was sentenced to 25 years in prison at an unfair trial in 2003 in reprisal for his peaceful activities as an independent librarian and advocate for human rights.

Join us in calling on the Cuban government to end its persecution of the Ladies in White.

Learn More About the Ladies in White

 Sample Letter:

Dr. Fidel Castro Ruz
Presidente de los Consejos de Estados y de Ministros
La Habana, Cuba

Dear President Castro:

I wish to express my concern over the so-called “act of repudiation” mobilized by the Cuban authorities against Isel Acosta Obregon, a member of the Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White) and wife of imprisoned independent librarian Blas Giraldo Reyes Rodriguez. On March 17 a mob surrounded Ms. Acosta’s home in Sancti Spiritus. The mob apparently prevented her from attending a commemoration ceremony on the third anniversary of the imprisonment of 75 activists in March 2003.

According to Ms. Acosta, she was alone in her home when the mob of several hundred men and women arrived by bus. Even young children are reported to have been included in this act of intimidation. The crowd began banging on her windows and doors, hurling insults and making threats. Frightened and physically prevented from leaving her home, Ms. Acosta was unable to make the train she was scheduled to take to Havana, in order to join the Ladies in White at the public commemoration ceremony.

The crowd made specific references to private conversations Ms. Acosta has had with prison officials, plainly indicating official involvement in the supposedly “spontaneous” assembly of citizens outside her home. The Cuban government has a responsibility under international law to protect the basic rights and freedoms of nonviolent human rights activists like Ms. Acosta, and other members of the Ladies in White.  

The Ladies in White – wives and relatives of peaceful activists who have been unjustly imprisoned – are widely-recognized human rights defenders who employ nonviolent strategies to urge for humane prison conditions, basic rights, and the release of their wrongfully imprisoned family members. In recognition of their peaceful advocacy, the Ladies in White were awarded the 2005 Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought, the European Parliament’s most prestigious human rights award. Yet over the past year, members of the Ladies in White have reported increased harassment and violence aimed against them, both by and with the complicity of state authorities.

The 1998 UN Declaration on Human Rights Defenders explicitly lays out the state’s responsibility in protecting human rights defenders from these types of assaults. Article 12 of this document, which Cuba was actively involved in drafting, maintains that the state “shall take all necessary measures to ensure the protection by the competent authorities of everyone, individually and in association with others, against any violence, threats, retaliation, de facto or de jure adverse discrimination, pressure or any other arbitrary action” that results from the exercise of their right to defend and promote human rights.

I strongly urge your government to protect and promote the work of human rights defenders, and to uphold the freedom of peaceful assembly and expression. I also call for a halt to the persecution and jailing of peaceful promoters of fundamental freedoms and basic rights, and for the unconditional release of all those who have been imprisoned for the nonviolent expression of their opinions and beliefs.

Thank you for your consideration of this urgent matter.