Senators Rubio, Menendez Call for Release of Ladies In White Member Ivonne Malleza and For Political and Economic Isolation of the Castro Regime

Washington - U.S. Senators Marco Rubio (R-FL) and Robert Menendez (D-NJ) issued the following statement regarding the Castro regime's unjust incarceration of Cuban democracy advocate Ivonne Malleza, who was detained on November 30, 2011 for staging a peaceful protest at a Havana park and is now confined to the notorious maximum security Manto Negro prison:

"The unjust detention of pro-democracy leader and member of the Ladies in White, Ivonne Malleza Galano, her husband Ignacio Martínez Montejo and activist Isabel Hayde Alvarez Mosqueda for staging a peaceful protest in supporting freedom for the Cuban people, once again highlights the abuses of civil and human rights taking place just ninety miles from America's shores. The unrelenting tyranny of the Castro brothers' regime led to more than 3,500 political arrests in 2011. We urge the United States and the world community to demand their immediate release; to recognize the abundant abuses of human and civil rights on the island; and to adopt reforms that politically and economically isolate, rather than sustain, this repressive regime."

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