Protesting Women Roughed Up in Havana

Imagine the howls from the left if this happened to, say, those wretched fleabags from Code Pink.

A group of Cuban women peacefully demonstrating for the release of their jailed husbands were roughed up by a mob and arrested on Monday near the offices of President Raul Castro.

The 10 women, members of an organization known as the "Women in White," gathered at a park Monday morning at the edge of Cuba's Revolution Square, where the government and Communist Party headquarters are located.

They wore white T-shirts emblazoned with the faces and names of their loved ones, but carried no signs.

"We are here to demand the release of our husbands and won't leave until they are free or they arrest us. We have waited long enough, we want to talk to the new president," group leader Laura Pollan said.

Moments later, a bus pulled up and about 20 female corrections officers tried to arrest the women, who sat on the sidewalk, clasped arms and refused to move.

"They are dying, they are dying," one women yelled with tears in her eyes as the corrections officer tried to move her toward the bus.

A mob of about 100 government supporters, mainly women from nearby government buildings, quickly entered the fray, pushing the women, picking them up, throwing them into the waiting bus and yelling insults.

The Reuters reporter sees no small irony here.

Protests are rare in Cuba. In the past, similar actions have been broken up by government supporters and the protesters held for a few hours before being released.