Unprecedented protests against the government sparked an appeal by Díaz-Canel to defend his administration

“The order of the fight is given, to the street the revolutionaries”Diaz-Canel said in a televised address, accusing “the Cuban-American mafia” of being behind the uprising.

“We call on all the revolutionaries in the country, the communists, to take to the streets wherever these provocations are going to take place, from now on and for all these days. And to face them decisively, firmly, with courage,” he said. added.

At dusk, several groups of government supporters gathered in different areas of the capital to prepare for the counter march, AFP confirmed.

The anti-government protests, widely publicized on social media, began spontaneously in the morning, an unusual occurrence in a country ruled by the Communist Party (CCP), where the only rallies allowed are usually those of the party itself.

“Down with the dictatorship”, “Let them go” O “Motherland and life! – the title of a controversial song – shouted several thousand demonstrators in San Antonio de los Baños, a small town of 50,000 inhabitants about thirty kilometers from Havana.

“Freedom!” Chanted hundreds of other people during various rallies in Havana, where clashes broke out between demonstrators and the police, who used tear gas.

At least 10 people were arrested and several police officers used plastic tubes to beat protesters as the city was subjected to a large military and police deployment, AFP found.

Other protests were reported and broadcast live, via Facebook or Twitter, in cities across the country.

The driving force behind growing demand from the population since arriving in the country at the end of 2018, mobile internet was cut off in much of the island from midday.

President Diaz-Canel He also traveled to San Antonio de Los Baños accompanied by activists from the ruling party who marched shouting “Long live Cuba!” and “Long live Fidel!”, while throughout its journey the inhabitants continued to cry out loud and clear against the economic crisis.

A resident, who requested anonymity, told AFP that she had participated in the morning demonstration, fed up with “the situation with the power and the food”.

The coronavirus pandemic has plunged the island into its worst economic crisis in 30 years, exacerbating food and medicine shortages and generating severe social unrest.

Economic difficulties have also led authorities to apply power cuts of up to six hours a day in large areas of the country.

“It seems the energy situation is the one that has lifted the spirits here,” Diaz-Cane admitted.l in front of journalists, blaming US sanctions for the crisis.

“If you want the people to be better off, first lift the blockade,” he added of the embargo in force since 1962.

“The Cuban-American mafia paying very well on social networks (…) took the situation in Cuba as a pretext and called and called for demonstrations in all regions of the country,” he said.

However, the president asserted that “there are people who have come to express their discontent”, even “confused revolutionaries”.

But here there are “many, and I put myself as the first, who are ready to give their lives for this revolution,” he said in his speech.

On Twitter, US Assistant Secretary of State for the Americas Julie Chung called for “calm”.

“We are deeply concerned about the ‘calls to combat’ in Cuba. We defend the Cuban people’s right to peaceful assembly,” the official said.

The protests came on a day when Cuba recorded a new daily record of infections and deaths from the coronavirus, with 6,923 cases reported for a total of 238,491 and 47 deaths in 24 hours, for a total of 1,537 deaths .

Under the keywords #SOSCuba or #SOSMatanzas (the name of the province most affected by the covid), requests for help on social networks have multiplied, as have appeals to the government to facilitate the sending of donations from abroad.

On Saturday, a group of opponents called for the opening of a “humanitarian corridor”, an initiative that the government has categorically rejected, denouncing “a campaign” which seeks to “present an image of total chaos in the country which does not not match the current situation. “