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Cuba: more than 100 people in detention

2021-07-13T23:50:23.373Z


A hundred people, including figures of dissent, were in detention Tuesday, July 13 in Cuba, two days after demonstrations without ...


A hundred people, including figures of dissent, were in detention Tuesday, July 13 in Cuba, two days after unprecedented demonstrations against the government, which denies any

"social explosion"

.

Read also: In Cuba, the demonstrators challenge the Castro regime

"On July 11, there was no social explosion in Cuba, there was none because of the will of our people and the support of our people for the Revolution and its government,"

he said. Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez said at a press conference. Like President Miguel Diaz-Canel before him, Bruno Rodriguez accused Washington of being at the origin of the unprecedented demonstrations which broke out on Sunday on the socialist island in some forty towns and villages with cries of "

We are hungry"

,

"Liberty"

and

"Down with the dictatorship"

.

On Tuesday, some 130 people were imprisoned or reported as missing, according to a list of names posted on Twitter by the protest movement San Isidro. Among them are José Daniel Ferrer and Manuel Cuesta Morua, two of the country's main dissidents. The dissident organization Ladies in White also announced on Twitter the arrest of its leader Berta Soler. While no official figure has been released concerning the arrests, families tried on Tuesday to obtain information on their arrested relatives in the police stations of the capital, AFP noted. The Interior Ministry announced, without giving details of the circumstances, that a protester died on Monday in the popular Güinera district, on the outskirts of Havana, whilehe participated in the

"troubles"

.

Read also: Cuba, exile at all costs

Earlier, the Assistant Secretary of State of the United States for the Americas, Julie Chung, had denounced

"the violence and the arrests of Cuban demonstrators, as well as the disappearance of independent activists"

quoting Guillermo "Coco" Fariñas - since released - José Daniel Ferrer, Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara and Amaury Pacheco.

"We demand their immediate release

," she added. Among those arrested was also Camila Acosta, a 28-year-old Cuban, according to the Madrid newspaper

ABC

, with which she had worked for six months.

"To arrest a journalist from a Spanish media, ABC, seems inappropriate to me,"

responded Spanish Prime Minister Pedro Sanchez, who called on Havana to respect Cubans' right to

“Demonstrate freely”

. On Tuesday, a YouTuber, Dina Stars, was arrested at her home by police while speaking live on a Spanish television show, according to the latter.

Apparent calm reigned Tuesday in the capital, still under a strong police, military and civilian presence. But the mobile Internet, the engine of mobilizations, was still cut off. The specialized Netblocks observatory reported disruptions in Cuba on major social networks and communications platforms, such as Whatsapp and Facebook. Washington called for the rapid restoration of

"all means of communication, online and offline

.

"

"Closing the information channels (...) does nothing to meet the legitimate needs and aspirations of the Cuban people

,

"

State Department spokesman Ned Price said. The United States has indicated, however, that it will not allow Cubans who attempt to flee their countries in crisis by sea.

Read also: Cuba on the verge of food chaos

On the island, Catholic bishops called on the government and protesters to

"come

to an

understanding"

to avoid violence, as protests turned into clashes with law enforcement.

While they highlighted the government's efforts to deal with the economic crisis,

"the people have the right to express their needs, desires and hopes,"

they said in a statement.

The demonstrations, unprecedented since 1994, angered the Communist government.

"We will avoid revolutionary violence, but we will repress counter-revolutionary violence"

, warned President Diaz-Canel on Monday.

Several demonstrations by supporters of the regime took place on Sunday and then Monday, with sometimes violent clashes between the two camps.

A sign of the gravity of the situation, Raul Castro, 90, had to come out of retirement.

The former leader of the 1959 Cuban revolution, along with his brother Fidel, handed over the reins of the Communist Party (PCC, sole) in April to Miguel Diaz-Canel, who had succeeded him as president in 2018. He attended. Sunday at a meeting of the Political Bureau of the CPC Central Committee in which

"were analyzed the provocations orchestrated by counterrevolutionary elements, organized and financed from the United States with destabilization objectives

,

"

Granma said on Tuesday, official journal party.

Source: lefigaro

All news articles on 2021-07-13

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