Laura Inés Pollán Toledo (February 13, 1948 in

Manzanillo, Cuba Manzanillo is a municipality and city in the Granma Province of Cuba. By population, it is the 14th-largest Cuban city and the most populated one not being a provincial seat. Geography It is a port city in the Granma Province in eastern Cuba on ...

– October 14, 2011) was a prominent

Cuba Cuba, officially the Republic of Cuba, is an island country, comprising the island of Cuba (largest island), Isla de la Juventud, and List of islands of Cuba, 4,195 islands, islets and cays surrounding the main island. It is located where the ...

n opposition leader. Pollan founded the dissident group Ladies in White, which holds pacific protest marches with the wives and spouses of

political prisoner A political prisoner is someone imprisoned for their political activity. The political offense is not always the official reason for the prisoner's detention. There is no internationally recognized legal definition of the concept, although ...

s in Cuba to demand their release. Pollan worked as a

literature Literature is any collection of Writing, written work, but it is also used more narrowly for writings specifically considered to be an art form, especially novels, Play (theatre), plays, and poetry, poems. It includes both print and Electroni ...

teacher A teacher, also called a schoolteacher or formally an educator, is a person who helps students to acquire knowledge, competence, or virtue, via the practice of teaching. ''Informally'' the role of teacher may be taken on by anyone (e.g. w ...

until her retirement in 2004. In 2003, her husband, Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez, and seventy-four other Cubans, now known as the Group of 75, were arrested in the Black Spring, a crackdown on opposition figures. The group included journalists, activists, and commentators whom the Cuban government accused of taking money from foreign governments, including the United States. Pollan soon began appearing outside government facilities where her husband could have potentially been imprisoned. She soon ran into the wives of other political prisoners, which led to the founding of the Ladies in White. Pollan always wore white, a symbol of the organization, and became a key opposition figure in Cuba. Her home at 963 Calle Neptuno in Havana became a center of opposition where she hosted literary tea for wives of political prisoners. Pollan died of cardiorespiratory arrest on October 14, 2011, at the age of 63. She had been hospitalized since October 7. According to the Cuban government, she had suffered from

dengue fever Dengue fever is a mosquito-borne disease caused by dengue virus, prevalent in tropical and subtropical areas. Asymptomatic infections are uncommon, mild cases happen frequently; if symptoms appear, they typically begin 3 to 14 days after i ...

."Cuba 'Ladies in White' founder Laura Pollan dies"
BBC News, 15 October 2011.

References

External links

* ttp://internacional.elpais.com/internacional/2011/10/15/actualidad/1318693329_447251.html Laura Pollán, la profesora a la que no interesaba la política Carles Pérez-Desoy Fages, El País, 15-10-2011 {{DEFAULTSORT:Pollan, Laura 1948 births 2011 deaths Cuban dissidents Cuban human rights activists 20th-century Cuban educators 21st-century Cuban educators Cuban women educators Women human rights activists Political prisoners in Cuba