The Cuban government has shown its true face to the world. However, what could be plainly seen was not an expression of goodness or sound judgment - what explanation could there be for a crowd attacking with impunity three or four dozen women dressed in white?

I wonder what category of barbarism could be assigned to such crowds consisting of people blinded by hate and other dispositions springing from the darker side of the soul.

These days, the dictatorship has put its machinery of terror into full operation. By exercising acts of meanness and abuse it is striving to put an end to the Ladies in White (Damas de Blanco) movement. The expressions of the government’s anger range from smear campaigns and gross misrepresentations of the truth to indiscriminate use of brute force.

Verbal harassment in form of unutterable obscenities and shameful allusions is no longer enough: crowds of people assembled with the aim to intimidate and offend have recently started to punch, push and kick.

Thus they act without a slightest trace of humanity, resembling wild beasts in the full of their wild instincts. They scream, pounce and jump, enjoying the opportunity to abuse their victims. There’s no room for sensitivity during these "acts of repudiation", which could be also seen as a rehearsal for lynching.

On Wednesday March 17, such cruelty materialized at the exit of the Church of Santa Barbara in the Havana municipality of Arroyo Naranjo.

A peaceful march of about 40 women members of the Ladies in White citizen organization was severely attacked by Interior Ministry troops and vigilante groups.

All the women were beaten and dragged into a bus. Several were in need of medical attention, including Laura Pollan and Reina Luisa Tamayo, mother of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, prisoner of conscience who recently