Obama trip to Cuba shows move away from focus on dissidents

Published 10:00 am Friday, March 11, 2016

HAVANA — Dozens of uniformed and plainclothes police watch silently every Sunday morning as white-clad dissidents file into Mass at Santa Rita Church in a leafy Havana neighborhood of mansions overlooking the Florida Straits.

The officers stand by until the women shout “Freedom!” and try to sit on the street outside the church. The protesters are whisked off to police stations and empty schools, held for hours, released and driven home, to return the following week.

The well-practiced choreography of protest has become a feature of Sunday mornings in Cuba. Nearly 9,000 times last year, Communist authorities briefly arrested dissidents in shows of force that have become a flashpoint in the U.S. debate about President Barack Obama’s three-day trip to the island this month.

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