Somos+ Prepares for its Convention Under Police Harassment

Somos+ Prepares for its Convention Under Police Harassment / 14ymedio
Posted on January 11, 2016

14ymedio, Havana, 9 January 2016 — The independent movement Somos+ (We
Are More) is experiencing intense days as its annual convention
approaches, due to a strong police operation against its members. The
arrest of activist Joanna Columbie last Thursday in Santiago de Cuba,
raised the tension around the event scheduled for 14 January several
degrees.

Police pressure has included threats to the majority of Somos+'s members
living in Cuba, and police warnings that the meeting would not be
permitted. The national coordinator of the group, Manuel Diaz Mons, was
also arrested and later released, after an exaggerate options in which
several vinyl posters with the Somos+ logo were confiscated.

There whereabouts of Joanne Columbie remain unknown. If is the second
occasion in less than six months in which the former municipal education
methodologist has been jailed to prevent her traveling to Havana for a
Somos+ meeting. Last September she was taken to the police station in
the city of Cespedes in Camaguey, where she lives.

Members of the group strongly denounced the police operation that tool
place "in several provinces against people with responsibilities for
preparing for the annual convention." The activists also reported that
several members of the organization had their email service cut off by
the State entity Nauta.

In a document released Friday, the leader of the organization, Eliecer
Avila, condemned "energetically these actions against a peaceful
convention," and warned that they would go ahead with plans to hold the
meeting.

Somos+ is a movement created in March of 2013 by Avila, who defined it
from its beginning as a group "concerned with opinions and with ideas
for future, that many of us share."

Source: Somos+ Prepares for its Convention Under Police Harassment /
14ymedio | Translating Cuba -
http://translatingcuba.com/somos-prepares-for-its-convention-under-police-harassment-14ymedio/