NOVEMBER 2, 2007
Cuban youth arrested for wearing bracelets
Up to 60 Cuban youths were arrested this week for wearing bracelets designed to symbolize political protest.

Posted on Fri, Nov. 02, 2007
By FRANCES ROBLES
frobles@MiamiHerald.com

The latest fad among Cuban youth is a simple white rubber bracelet emblazoned with the word ''CAMBIO'' -- change -- and it landed up to 60 young people behind bars this week, according to human-rights activists on the island.

Several dissidents in Cuba said a group of about 16 young people took to the street in Havana on Sunday to protest the second round of Cuba's municipal elections. Many of them were wearing the white wristbands, similar to the cancer-awareness bracelets made popular by cyclist Lance Armstrong.

The bracelets were sent to Cuba as part of a Miami-based initiative to foster dissent, and appear to have become a fashion trend.

''My son was not even at the protest on Sunday, but they came to the house with an arrest warrant on Tuesday looking for him,'' anti-Castro activist Aurelio Bachiller said by phone from Havana. ``They took the bracelet from him and tossed him in a cell.''

CRACKDOWN
Picked up at 11:30 a.m. Tuesday, Macdonis Bachiller, 21, was released Thursday afternoon. Apparently incensed over Sunday's protest, Cuba's security and police agents conducted round-ups Monday and Tuesday, detaining anyone on the street wearing one of the bracelets, Juan Carlos González Leyva, a board member of the Council of Human Rights Rapporteurs said by telephone in Havana.

He said about 60 young people were swept up, including two who are relatives of known dissidents.

The arrests triggered fears that the Cuban government has kicked off a new wave of repression to crack down on dissent -- one that ensnared largely apolitical teens.
Although some of the youth wear the bracelet as a sign of protest, the majority are enjoying the same fashion craze that swept the United States, González said.

''Some people wear the AIDS ones which are yellow,'' González said. 'These are white, but in the schools a lot of kids wear it backwards, so you can't see the word `change.' For a lot of kids, it's nothing but a distraction. It doesn't matter to them if it says change or anything else.''

But it matters, he added, to the government.

The young people detained Monday and Tuesday were warned that authorities were preparing files on them to later charge them with ``social dangerousness.''

Cuba's opposition journalists have reported similar detentions and seizures of the bracelets in sporadic cases around the island since early this year.

IN WASHINGTON
The case triggered strong reaction in Washington, where Cuban-American members of Congress -- and President Bush's Cabinet -- fired off statements in support of the youth.

''I wear the bracelet, but it's easy for us to wear whatever bracelet you want,'' Commerce Secretary Carlos Gutiérrez said in a telephone interview. He said he wears his every day, even to bed.

``In Cuba, they wear it and 70 students are mistreated and thrown in jail. It takes courage for students in Cuba to wear it. I admire them.''

Macdonis Bachiller already has a new CAMBIO wristband: his dad brought it to him when he picked him up at the police station.

El Nuevo Herald staff writer Wilfredo Cancio Isla contributed to this report.

Source: Miami Herald.com