Cuba: UN expressed concern over death of protester and demanded respect for right to protest

The UN expressed concern on Wednesday about death of a protester in Cuba, the first known death since the outbreak of protests on the island.

“We continue to monitor the situation there very closely and we are concerned about the reports of the death of a protester ”, the spokesperson stressed Florence soto, consulted during the daily press conference of the organization.

Cuban authorities on Tuesday confirmed the first dead in the protests, a 36-year-old citizen who lost his life on Monday in a clash with agents of the People’s Council of Güinera, from the municipality of Arroyo Naranjo, a district in the south of Havana where neighbors took to the streets shouting “Freedom“, According to videos posted on social networks.

In addition to the deceased, several people were arrested and others were injured, including law enforcement officers, in the Güinera event, which the government attributed to an act of vandalism by the group of neighbors, which he accused of initially attacking the police.

The United Nations spokesperson reiterated that, As a matter of principle, the organization calls for demonstrations to be peaceful and for the right to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly to be respected.

“We want to make sure that fundamental human rights are respected and that continues to be our position”, he stressed, repeating the message that the office of Secretary General Antonio Guterres had already launched this week.

The Cuban government denies that the mass protests on Sunday involved police repression, something that contrasts with the many videos of scenes of police and para-police violence against civilians circulating on the networks, as well as eyewitness accounts and relatives of detainees in the demonstrations.

Until there is no official number of detainees and missing, while international human rights organizations and militant groups put them in the hundreds.

During, the mobile internet connection in Cuba is still cut three days after the protests, although a minority have recovered the data service and some young people manage to access the network using VPN platforms and nifty tips.

Protests against the Communist regime erupted on Sunday and have continued to this day; These are the biggest demonstrations since the triumph of the revolution in 1959. Behind this outbreak there is factors such as the economic crisis, pandemic and the effects of mobile internet.

But Cuba It was already in crisis before the arrival of the coronavirus pandemic on the island in March 2020. The collapse of the Venezuelan economy, which has been its mainstay, and the tightening of the American embargo during Donald Trump’s tenure, with more than 240 additional sanctions, have stunned the Cuban economy.

Four and a half years after the death of Fidel Castro and three months after Raúl Castro left office to retire, many Cubans, mainly young people, are asking for a change. A good sum demands the president and first secretary of the Communist Party (single PCC), Miguel Díaz-Canel, space for other ways of thinking and for the debate of different points of view.

Beyond these political demands, the Cubans also want improve the conditions of your daily life and more freedom in business, in a country where the opening of the private sector is progressing slowly.

(With information from EFE and AFP)

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