Opposition member detained during Patriarch Kirill's visit to Cuba

By Moisés Leonardo Rodríguez

Archive photo. Vladimir Calderón Frías

Artemisa, Cuba. Tuesday, February 16, 2016. Vladimir Calderón Frías, the National Treasurer Director of the Republican Party of Cuba and promoter of the Martí Current, was arrested for more than 24 hours last weekend, according to his own account.

Vladimir explains that he was arrested at his home, located in the Havana municipality of Centro Habana, in the middle of a large-scale operation by State Security agents along with the National Police.

He recounts that the officers who arrested him shouted to the neighbors who witnessed the events that they were going to break down the door if he did not open it; that they were arresting him because he intended to "sabotage" the head of the Russian Orthodox Church, Patriarch Kirill, who visited Havana to meet briefly with Pope Francis and then carried out several activities on the island.

“They took me to the National Revolutionary Police (PNR) station in the Cotorro Municipality,” Calderón himself recounts, adding that he was released on Sunday afternoon. The opposition member explained that “the police assumed it was going to be an act of sabotage because of meetings we had arranged here in Havana with activist groups from the Republican Party of Cuba and others with whom we collaborate, such as the Independent and Democratic Cuba (CID) and the Frank País November 30th Democratic Party. We had planned to draw attention to the level of repression being deployed against the opposition.”

Vladimir Calderón describes his intention as “drawing attention by displaying posters and handing out leaflets (…) with demands related to rights being curtailed in Cuba. Some activist groups would support these poster displays, cheering for expressions of democratic change for the Cuban nation.”