Cuba: arrests and clashes in Havana when police disperse unauthorized gay marches

An unauthorized march on Saturday in Havana, attended by activists from the LGBT community, ended the clashes between the participants and the Cuban police, which arrested several people.

The demonstration was organized mainly in social networks after the Cuban government decided a few days ago to suspend the traditional "conga" against homophobia organized for more than ten years by the National Center for the Protection of Human Rights. Sex Education (Cenebad), which runs Deputy Mariela Castro, daughter of former President Raúl Castro.

The suspension – which has been attributed to "new tensions in the international and regional context" – has caused discomfort within the LGBT community.

According to the EFE news agency, the Cenebad said in a statement this week that the annual gay conga was canceled because it would be used for destabilizing purposes by the "counter-revolution".

"We do not understand why in the course of this day, something that has been a success has been canceled, it is part of us during all this time (…) We ask that the guarantees are respected," he said. he declared at the beginning. Saturday's demonstration, Yasmany Sánchez, in a statement collected by EFE.

More than a hundred activists participated in the unauthorized protest that took place in the Paseo del Prado, at the end of which she was intercepted by the police to stop her from continuing towards the Malecon, as provided by the badistants.

It was at this point that the clashes began. The agents, some of whom were dressed in plain clothes, provoked the dispersal of the protesters. At least three activists have been arrested.

According to Will Grant, correspondent for the BBC in Cuba, the war on homophobia is an important event for the island's LGBT community, where homobaduals have been persecuted and repressed for decades.

Prior to that, says Grant, the decision to cancel this year's event had sparked the disbelief of community members.

Mariela Castro herself declared in a message on her Facebook account that Saturday's march was "a show convened from Miami and Matanzas, supported by representatives of the US Embbady and covered by the foreign press".

The "conga" of this year would have been the first to be held after the approval, in April, of the new Cuban Constitution, in which was initially planned a modification that opened the doors of gay marriage on the island but which does not was ultimately not included in the final text.

According to EFE, this issue was one of the most controversial in popular debates on the Magna Carta and had sparked an energetic campaign against evangelical and Catholic churches.