[BBC] – Cuba’s most prominent dissident group has called off its traditional protest for the first time in 13 years following the death of the country’s revolutionary leader Fidel Castro.

The Ladies in White say the decision is to avoid tensions. The group, founded by wives of jailed dissidents, has long defied a protest ban in Cuba with a weekly march.

Castro died on Friday at the age of 90. Flags are flying at half mast as the country observes nine days of mourning. From Monday, people will be able to pay their respects at memorials and rallies before Castro’s ashes are taken to Santiago de Cuba where he launched his bid for power.

And a mass public ceremony is planned at Havana’s Revolutionary Square on Tuesday. But there have been further celebrations in the US city of Miami where many anti-Castro Cuban exiles and their families have settled.

The cause of death has not yet been revealed but Castro had been in poor health since he nearly died of an intestinal illness in 2006. The mood in the capital remains subdued, the BBC’s Barbara Plett-Usher in Havana says, with people still absorbing the news.

Castro came to power in 1959 and ushered in a Communist revolution. Supporters say he returned Cuba to the people, and praise him for some of his social programs, such as public health and education.

But critics call him a dictator, who led a government that did not tolerate opposition and dissent, accused of numerous alleged human rights abuses. The regular Sunday march of the Ladies in White is a rare expression of dissent largely tolerated by the government. But police have clamped down in recent months, our correspondent in Havana adds.

The women march in silence through the streets of Havana following Mass at a Roman Catholic Church, asking for the release of political prisoners and for human rights to be respected.

“We’re not going to march today [Sunday] so that the government does not take it as a provocation and so that they can pay their tributes,” the group’s leader, Berta Soler, said.

“We respect the mourning of others and will not celebrate the death of any human being.”

In a tweet reacting to the former leader’s death, the group said: “Fidel Castro has died, may God forgive him, I WON’T”. Cuban authorities say the Ladies in White are in the pay of the United States and form part of Washington’s “decades-old effort to undermine Cuba’s socialist revolution”. The government says there are no political prisoners in the country.