This is what “Hope and Change” looks like in Cuba. This is the true and unmistakable nature of the apartheid Castro dictatorship. The very same dictatorship so many tell us we should be embracing and supporting.

Antonella Marty in PanAm Post:

Cuba’s National “Women’s Week” Features Violence against Ladies in White

I just returned from a trip to Cuba, and I must say that I saw things there I never thought I would. I was already aware that communism does not work, but this trip showed me the destruction up close. I walked through the devastation of the longest dictatorship in Latin American history, where the same tyrants have ruled since 1959, and where political propaganda abounds and the humiliation of the Cuban people is a common occurrence.

Throughout the week of my visit, I had the opportunity and the great honor to meet with the women I most admire in the world. They are women who fight for the freedom of political prisoners in Cuba, women who fight for the freedom of the Cuban people. They’re the Ladies in White, and they are attacked on a daily basis by the regime for protesting peacefully, dressed in white and asking for the most sacred thing a human being can have: freedom.

While I was there, the Cuban television channels were plagued with political propaganda for what the regime called “National Women’s Week,” during which Castro and his cronies denounced violence against women despite having killed and beaten the brave women who march for peace and freedom in the Ladies in White.

Another typical characteristic of the Castro regime is hypocrisy and a two-faced attitude. The same Castro puppets who appear on television denouncing violence against women beat the women who stand up to them. The same Castro puppets who denounce wealth buried Fidel Castro — who amassed a $900 million fortune — while the Cuban people die of hunger.

The Ladies in White movement came about after what is known as the Black Spring of 2003. On that occasion, the Marxist regime unleashed a brutal wave of repression and sent 75 Cuban opponents and journalists to prison. In response, the wives, mothers and relatives of the prisoners began a campaign to see them released. In peaceful street protests they wear white outfits, and carry photographs of their imprisoned relatives.

Since the first day of protests, this movement has been silenced with beatings and arbitrary detentions. However, the Ladies in White have never lost their determination and perseverance.