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    October 17, 2011

Cuban Ladies in White Vow to Continue Protests

   VOA News
   A member of the Ladies in White holds a picture of leader Laura Pollan,
   inside a church after a march in homage of Laura Pollan, along the main
   avenue of the upscale Havana district of Miramar in Hava
   Photo: Reuters
   A member of the Ladies in White holds a picture of leader Laura Pollan,
   inside a church after a march in homage of Laura Pollan, along the main
   avenue of the upscale Havana district of Miramar in Havana, October 16,
   2011.

   Cuba's dissident Ladies in White staged their weekly protest march
   Sunday, despite the death of their leader Laura Pollan.
   Men marched with the women Sunday in a show of support for the group
   and to honor Pollan, who died Friday at the age of 63.
   The group's new leader, Berta Soler, said the weekly marches will
   continue, as they have for eight years.
   The protesters are reported to have shouted "Laura Pollan lives"
   instead of their usual "Freedom" at the end of Sunday's march.
   The Ladies in White are relatives of some of 75 dissidents arrested in
   a 2003 government crackdown in Cuba. The dissidents have all since been
   released.
   Cuban writer Yoani Sanchez said in a Washington Post article, Pollan
   died after a five-day delay in diagnosing dengue fever, in a country
   she says has been experiencing an intense outbreak of the disease for
   months.
   Sanchez said while newspapers around the world reported Pollan's death,
   Cuba's Granma - the official paper of the Communist Party - and all
   other papers on the island remained silent.

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