Estefan To Lead March In Cuba

GLORIA ESTEFAN has organised a march in her native Cuba to support a women’s campaign group in the country.

The singer has thrown her support behind the Ladies in White - Las Damas de Blanco - a group of women whose husbands and sons are among journalists, political dissidents, writers and poets who were rounded up and jailed in 2003 for opposing the regime of former president Fidel Castro.

The group marches every year to mark the anniversary of the arrests, known as the Black Spring, but one of their recent protests in Havana on 17 March (10) was marred by violence, with police forcibly hauling the women away.

The incident infuriated Estefan and she has now backed their campaign by organising another march in Havana on 25 March (10).

The Grammy-winner is calling for her fellow Cubans to join the march and support the women.

She says in a statement, “The moment has come for us as well; Cubans who live in freedom and anyone who would like to join us, to show our strength, support and spirit to the Damas and to the Cuban people.

“Let’s walk together like the Damas de Blanco; with dignity, in silence, with a flower of hope in our hands and dressed in white to represent purity of thought, actions and new beginnings! We will walk for the love of freedom.”