Tania Bruguera was arrested on Sunday in Cuba following a free speech demonstration with the Ladies in White (Spanish: Damas de Blanco).  While this marks yet another attempt by the country’s government to silence free expression and one of its most vocal proponents, Bruguera also bears the physical marks of her arrest, as she’s documented the bruises from her treatment at the hands of police.

Tania Bruguera displaying bruises resulting from her latest arrest at a free speech demonstration in Cuba. (Deboarh Bruguera)

This was, of course, not Bruguera’s first arrest.  She was most famously arrested after her December 30th performance of “Tatlin’s Whisper #6,” which consisted of an open microphone placed in Havana’s Revolution Square.  For that performance she was charged with Incitation to Public Disturbance, Resistance to Police, and Incitation to Commit Delinquent Acts, charges described by The Voice Project as “an unjust response to a performance that consisted of little more than setting up a microphone” in an ongoing campaign for the dismissal of the case.

The Ladies in White are a group formed in 2003 by the wives and relatives of imprisoned dissidents, and are most well known for their weekly Sunday post-Mass marches, each bearing the image of their imprisoned relative buttoned to a white dress.

A group of Ladies in White in a 2012 demonstration in Havana. Bruguera set out to study the group and the government’s reactions in preparation for a free speech bill. (Wikimedia Commons)

Bruguera was attending Sunday’s march conducting research for a bill she is working to introduce to Cuba’s Parliament which would ban the legal persecution of individuals based on their political ideals.

Deborah Bruguera, Tania’s sister, reported that over 100 agents of the national police force conducted a raid on the demonstration, reacting to it with violence.  Deborah told The Voice Project that her sister was “pulled by the hair into a bus and detained under police interrogation.”

Specifically, Bruguera was interrogated during her detention about her reading on totalitarianism during last month’s Havana Biennial.  She was also arrested and detained following that reading, but has not rested in her activism, refusing to stop until the issues facing her country have been resolved.

While the police’s reaction to her performance proves that Tania has a great amount of work ahead of her, Bruguera’s continued resolve has shown that her response will continue to be up to the task.

You can join The Voice Project in supporting Tania and calling on the Cuban government to drop the charges against her here.