Last week's wave of repression in eastern Cuba, apparently sparked by plans for a nationwide march to demand freedom, has netted Castro security forces at least 130 dissidents.
Of those, as many as 100 were detained for as many as three days, according to Elizardo Sanchez, head of the Cuban National Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation.
Among those arrested on Sept. 9 were Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia and Angel Moya Acosta, two members of the Group of 75 prisoners of conscience imprisoned during the "black spring" of 2003, the last of which were released last year and this. (Ferrer, Moya and 10 others chose to stay in Cuba rather than accept forced exile as a condition of their release.)
Ferrer and Moya were released early Monday.
The rise in arrests has coincided not only with the planned march, which did get underway, but with an increase in the fear felt by the Castro regime, as Cubans become more willing to take their demands for justice and freedom to the street.
The Castros have seen what has happened to their fellow dictators in the Middle East, and they are doing all they can to protect themselves from an identical fate.
Events in Libya and Egypt have inspired their fear.
But they also have inspired those who oppose the Castros to hope for and to act for a similar result.
History has shown who will ultimately prevail.
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