Laura Pollan, 63, a Cuban dissident who founded the opposition group Ladies in White and for nearly a decade staged weekly protest marches with other wives of political prisoners to press for their release, died Friday.
Pollan was hospitalized Oct. 7 for acute respiratory problems and had been in intensive care ever since.
She was one of the best-known and most vocal opposition figures in a country where dissenters publicly risk reprisals or imprisonment. Even after the Ladies accomplished the goal for which they were founded in 2003 — their husbands’ freedom — the group continued to protest against the government.
“She was a teacher and a housewife, but she became a leader for civil rights,” said Elizardo Sanchez, a prominent human- rights activist on the island. “She has played a fundamental role, without a doubt, even beyond winning freedom for her husband,” Hector Maseda. The Associated Press
