This has not happened in the authoritarian Caribbean state of Cuba for a long time.
People take to the streets and demonstrate against the poor supply situation and for freedom.
Havana - In connection with the first mass protests against the government in Cuba in decades, at least 115 people were arbitrarily arrested there, according to Amnesty International.
Among them were prominent dissidents as well as journalists, as the America director of the human rights organization, Erika Guevara-Rosas, wrote on Twitter on Monday. According to media reports, there was a high presence of the security forces. On Tuesday night (local time) there were isolated reports of dead and disappeared people on social media. Videos were circulated that were supposed to show new, smaller protests. The information could not be verified independently at first.
Since Internet access was restricted in Cuba, little information leaked out. “Because of the lack of access, it takes a lot of effort to speak of numbers: dead, injured and disappeared. But they do exist, ”wrote journalist Abraham Jiménez Enoa on Twitter on Tuesday. Numerous people were reported missing in a Facebook group. The press is being targeted, tweeted journalist Yoani Sánchez. There are police operations in the homes of activists and journalists.
On Sunday, thousands of people demonstrated against the economy of shortages and oppression in numerous cities of the authoritarian Caribbean state. The trigger was, among other things, the lack of medicines and food. Under the former US President Donald Trump, the US had tightened its sanctions against Cuba. During the pandemic, the important income from tourism is now also missing. Recently, the number of corona infections has also increased significantly.
"If you want to defeat the revolution, you have to go over our corpses," Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel said on TV on Sunday. He called for the revolution - in other words: the socialist system - to be defended on the streets. The security forces reportedly cracked down on him. Videos of men, who activists said were plainclothes police officers, beat and took away protesters. dpa