Cuban dissident Dania Virgen García has been released from prison:
Cuban Blogger Released After 15 Days in Jail
Garcia, 41, said Saturday that she had been released the day before after spending 15 days in Manto Negro women’s prison in Havana charged with “arbitrary exercise of law,” because of an argument with her 23-year-old daughter.
“It was all premeditated and planned by them, because of my work as an independent journalist and blogger,” said Garcia from her home, with reference to the action taken by the Cuban authorities.
She also said that she still has not had access to the documents of the case, such as the formal accusation and the prosecutor’s statement about why she was arrested. At the same time she denounced being held incommunicado for three days in a cell and several “arbitrary procedures” in the judicial process.
The blogger said that the charge for which she was sentenced has never before been applied on the island, according to what prison officials told her, and said she still has not received a summons for the appeal that should take place in the next few days.
(Noticias 24 has this Agencia EFE report in the original Spanish)
As you may recall, Dania Virgen had been persecuted for her support of the Ladies in White. She was arrested, tried and sentenced in less than two days.
Dania Virgen is back blogging (in Spanish). Her post on her release states,
She says that when she was told, “hey, pick up your stuff since you’re free and don’t talk to anyone,” the other women prisoners in their 20s and 30s yelled, “denounce what’s happening here and our situation.”
The bloggers are making a difference. We all must continue to post on the Castro regime’s human rights abuses.
