HAVANA: The founder of Cuba's Ladies in White dissident group, Laura Pollan, died Friday a week after being admitted to hospital due to respiratory failure, a fellow activist said.
"She just died, her husband Hector Maseda was with her," a dissident who asked not to be named told AFP by telephone from Calixto Garcia Hospital in Havana.
Dissident sources said doctors had performed a tracheotomy in a bid to relieve pressure from her respiratory failure, which was also being countered with breathing aids.
Pollan, 63, had been rushed to hospital a week ago after suffering acute respiratory distress.
Her group, who based operations at Pollan's house, was founded after the arrest and imprisonment of 75 Cuban dissidents in 2003.
Pollan's husband had been detained with them and the group had been set up demanding their release.
Blonde with a pale complexion, the diminutive Pollan had spent her career as a high school Spanish and literature professor, with a quiet tone but famously fierce convictions.
The Cuban government accuses the Ladies in White, winners of the European Parliament's 2005 Sakharov Prize, of provoking disturbances to highlight an alleged increase in repression, though Havana freed about 130 political prisoners between July 2010 and March 2011 with church mediation.
The Ladies in White have asked the local Roman Catholic Church to mediate with the Americas' only one-party Communist regime, which refuses to allow political opening.
Activists from the group marches peacefully in Havana every Sunday in white clothing, a color they say is intended to symbolize peace, often carrying gladiolus.
An estimated 50 political prisoners remain behind bars in this Caribbean country of 11 million.
Comments
Comments are closed for this article.