Cuba solidarity activists arrested in US

HAVANA, Cuba, Jun 23 (ACN) Activists in solidarity with Cuba were arrested for several hours in the United States, after peacefully going to the office of Senator Bob Menendez in Washington to demand an end to his policies against the Caribbean island.

On Twitter, the executive director of the interfaith organization Pastors for Peace, Gail Walker, one of those detained on Thursday said that the activists expressed their opposition to Menendez's genocidal policy towards the Cuban family, and instead of listening to their truth, they were arrested and charged.

They told us he would be back, we waited, and then they told us we had to leave the office and called the Capitol Police to arrest us, Walker explained in a video posted after her release.

On the same social media, Calla Walsh, also arrested, wrote that 20 officers were used to arrest three activists who were sitting peacefully to exchange with Senator Menendez about the need to end the economic, commercial and financial blockade against Cuba and remove the island from the list of sponsors of terrorism.

I think it's funny that they always tell us that Cuba is a repressive dictatorship, a police state, when they arrest us just for trying to have a conversation, said Walsh, who co-chairs the National Cuba Solidarity Network, as police officers escorted her.

Menendez, a New Jersey state senator, is one of the politicians who maintains a hard line against socialist nations such as Cuba and Venezuela, and has spearheaded several of his country's efforts to impose sanctions against these nations.