Here are a few thoughts on the Guardian’s report on Sunday’s widely- shown arrests of “protesters, from the Damas de Blanco (Ladies in White) and other opposition groups [who] were bundled into buses and police vans after a shouting match with pro-Castro supporters during their usual weekly demonstration near the Santa Rita church.” They marched behind a banner & also chanted, “Obama, we have a dream: a Cuba without Castros,” the Guardian reported.
Acknowledging that they “march silently along 5th Avenue each week in protest at the lack of freedom of expression,” the article does not make clear that on Sunday, and some other times, these protesters sought to continue their march (& extend the resulting confrontations) beyond designated areas, resulting in widely pictured-arrests which our mass media aired throughout Obama’s visit.
Although President Obama repeatedly expressed concern over “arbitrary detentions” in Cuba, Raul Castro then challenged the CNN reporter who asked about “political prisoners” in Cuba with this response:
“What political prisoners? Give me a name, or names, or after this meeting is over you can give me a list of political prisoners and if we have those political prisoners they will be released before tonight ends,” Castro said. U.S. media & commentators then presented these arrest videos (none of which show the repeatedly-claimed police brutality) as at least implicit proof of political prisoners in Cuba.
The images of those arrests (followed by brief “detentions”) certainly detracted from the otherwise positive atmosphere of Obama’s visit, as probably was the intended result. But however objectionable, such brief detentions would not make them political “prisoners” by most definitions. Likewise, Raul Castro’s promise that any such prisoners who could be named would be out of confinement that same day probably comported with reality, and for some, made these claims moot.
See also: Obama Says He Has Not Handed Over Dissidents’ List to Castro, http://abcn.ws/22AdiCx
Art Heitzer
