The case of Cuban dissident and human rights activist Yris Tamara Perez is another example of how two black women can have completely different experiences in Cuba. For a black woman like Beyonce, Cuba is a tropical and exotic paradise where she can enjoy gourmet meals, expensive liquors, and be escorted to the most exclusive attractions on the island. For a black woman like Yris, however, Cuba is a slave plantation where the color of her skin along with her vocal opposition to Havana’s slave masters has netted her vicious beatings, imprisonment, refusal of medical attention, and threats against her and her family.

Pedazos de la Isla has more:

Still suffering serious health issues, police once again attacks Yris Tamara Perez

What’s the danger of a woman- a Cuban citizen, to be specific- who tries to go to a pharmacy to buy some medications she needs for her high blood pressure?

Cuban authorities have only responded to this question with more violence.

Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, president of the Rosa Parks Movement for Civil Rights, a pro-freedom group made up by various women who dress in black and carry out peaceful marches and acts of civil disobedience, continues to be victim of beatings at the hands of Cuban political police agents, even when she is trying to take care of personal chores which have absolutely nothing to do with a political demonstration.

Perez was left unconscious after a beat down by the police this past March in the city of Santa Clara. She suffered numerous health complications after that, including a concussion and serious head pains. Meanwhile, all the hospitals of the mentioned city as well as her city of residence- Placetas- refused to let her in, all because State Security had ordered so, due to her ideology.

Her health situation was so serious that her father passed away a few days later and, because she was bed-ridden and in so much pain, she could not even go to his funeral and bid him farewell for the last time, something which has been extremely difficult for her.

This 25th of April, Yris was once against arrested and beat, this time by a police official known as Akaema. The activist was on her way to the Rafael Pharmacy of Placetas to buy some medications for her high blood pressure. She was accompanied by two other activists- Yaite Cruz Sosa and Xiomara Martin Jimenez- but they were not carrying out a protest, march, or any dissident activity. The three were arrested.

“Agent Akaema savagely beat me on the head… I have a neck brace and she hit me there on purpose, shaking my head all over the place”, recounts Yris Tamara in an audio published in the YouTube channel of her husband, well known former political prisoner and dissident leader Jorge Luis Garcia Perez ‘Antunez‘.