There is already one dead and at least 130 arrested due to protests in Cuba

The government of Cuba confirmed on Tuesday that the opposition protests that have spread this weekend in several cities have already left one dead.

According to a statement released by the Cuban news agency, Diubis Laurencio Tejeda, 36, died Monday afternoon when “organized groups of anti-social and criminal elements (…) disrupted order” and attempted to going to a police station “with the aim of attacking their troops and damaging the installations”, in the municipality of Arroyo Naranjo.

The man died while participating in a demonstration Monday in the humble neighborhood of La Güinera, on the outskirts of Havana, where there had been clashes between protesters and police.

The protesters were intercepted by security forces, the Cuban Interior Ministry reported, and in an attempt to escape the action “they set containers on fire.” In addition, the statement added, “they attacked the agents and civilians there with bladed weapons, stones and blunt objects.”

In any case, the government denies a “social epidemic”.

“On July 11, there was no social breakdown in Cuba, there was none because of the will of our people and the support of our people for the revolution,” the minister said. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez at a press conference.

In the context of clashes between security forces and demonstrators, dozens of people were arrested. Although the government of Miguel Díaz-Canel did not give figures, other sources mentioned this Tuesday between 130 and 140 arrested.

The Interior Ministry regretted the death of the protester “in the midst of a complex scenario in which citizens’ tranquility and internal order are preserved”. But he said nothing about the detainees, as many families are looking for people who have reportedly been arrested.

“They took my daughter on Monday and I don’t know anything about her, but I won’t say more, and I don’t want to be filmed either,” says a woman in front of a police station in a neighborhood near Havana .

No news from those arrested

His anguish is that of many relatives of more than a hundred detainees in Cuba during two days of demonstrations against the government.

According to a list posted on Twitter by the San Isidro Opposition Movement, until Tuesday 130 people are still arrested or missing, including independent journalists and opposition activists, including José Daniel Ferrer, Manuel Cuesta Morua and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, the country’s main dissidents.

The playwright Yunior García, one of the initiators of the 27N movement which brings together artists and intellectuals who demand greater freedom of expression, also denounced his arrest.

García said he went with other colleagues to the Cuban Radio and Television Institute (ICRT) on Sunday to request 15 minutes in front of the cameras.

But “we were beaten, dragged by force and thrown on a cargo truck, like bags of rubble”, he denounced, noting that on Monday they were released “as a precaution”.

Between Monday and Tuesday, a lieutenant received relatives at the police station who inquired about the people arrested.

“All the detainees were transferred to Vivac (detention center), to 100 and Aldabó (headquarters of the Technical Directorate of the National Police) and to 10 de Octubre (another post)”, he tells them curtly, without giving more details. .

Another 50-year-old mother was also investigating the fate of her 21-year-old son. “They took him out of the house, handcuffed and beaten, without a shirt, without a mask,” and also “they took a lot of them from the neighborhood, young and old,” says the woman, who prefers not to reveal her identity.

Still on condition of anonymity, a 24-year-old girl comments that her 25-year-old brother “was taken out of the neighbor’s house”. “They gave him a huge beating hand, unfairly, and took him away,” he says, without knowing where he is. “My mother almost had a heart attack,” he says.

The opposition organization Ladies in White, for its part, denounced the arrest of its leader Berta Soler and her husband, politician Angel Moya, “Leaving the national headquarters” of the organization, in Havana.

Also among those arrested is Camila Acosta, a 28-year-old Cuban journalist from the Madrid daily ABC. Spain’s Foreign Minister on Tuesday asked the Cuban authorities to respect the right to demonstrate and demanded the “immediate” release of Acosta.

Among the most prominent cases is young YouTuber Dina Stars, who was arrested at her home by Cuban police while speaking live on a Spanish TV show.

Apparent calm reigned Tuesday in the capital, with yet a strong military presence and plainclothes agents crisscrossing the neighborhoods.

But The mobile internet, the engine of the protests, was still suspended on the island. Internet watch group Netblocks reported interruptions in Cuba on major social networks and communication platforms, such as WhatsApp and Facebook.

The United States claims

This is why the United States formally urged the Cuban government to end the restrictions and renewed the demand for the release of the detained protesters.

“We call on the Cuban leaders to show restraint and respect for the voice of the people by opening all means of communication, both digital and non-digital,” State Department spokesman Ned Price said at the time. of a press conference.

“To close access to technology, to close information channels, that does nothing to meet the legitimate needs and aspirations of the Cuban people,” he said.

Washington underscored the sense of popular rebellion in the protests.

“We congratulate the Cuban people for showing great courage,” despite the government’s attempt to “silence its voice,” Price said.

And he added: “We call for calm and condemn all violence against those who demonstrate peacefully. And we also call on the Cuban government to release any detainee for demonstrating peacefully ”.

These original demonstrations, generated by the economic crisis which shakes the country and which degenerated into clashes with the security forces, angered the communist government which accused the United States of being behind them.

“The Cuban Revolution is not going to turn the other cheek to those who attack it in virtual and real spaces. We will avoid revolutionary violence, but we will repress counter-revolutionary violence, ”warned President Miguel Díaz-Canel.

About fifty organizations, including Amnesty International and the Latin American Network of Youth for Democracy, condemned the Cuban government’s “repression” against the citizen demonstrations recorded Tuesday in Cuba and called for the release of violence against demonstrators and inmates.

Source: AFP, EFE and AP