Cuba will emerge from the "
complex situation
" in which it finds itself, Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel assured Monday, July 11, just one year after the unprecedented demonstrations of July 11, 2021, while the island is going through its worst crisis. economy in thirty years.
“
We are going to (…) get out of this complex situation.
And we are going to get out of this by revolutionizing
, ”said the head of state on Twitter.
"
The Revolution has always revolutionized itself, and it has done so in the context of constant economic, political and ideological siege
", he added in reference to Washington's economic sanctions and the American embargo. in force since 1962.
Police presence
A year to the day after the historic July 11 protests, when thousands of Cubans took to the streets to cries of “
Freedom
” and “
We are hungry
,” Havana residents were going about their usual business on Monday, found the AFP.
About fifteen dissidents, artists or independent journalists, however, accused the police on Twitter of having warned them against leaving their homes.
Some said police were present outside their homes.
"
They think that with two patrols they will silence me, they are seriously mistaken
," Yurka Rodrigues, the mother of a 25-year-old demonstrator sentenced to eight years in prison, said on Twitter on Sunday, adding that her home was under "
Headquarters
".
A strong presence of plainclothes police was also visible in several hotspots of the capital.
“
If we have to commemorate anything on July 11, it is the victory of the Cuban people, of the Cuban Revolution
,” added Miguel Diaz-Canel.
Demonstrations amid economic crisis
On Friday, the Head of State had already affirmed that what should be celebrated on July 11 was that "
the Cuban people and the Cuban Revolution had thwarted a vandal coup
".
During the demonstrations of July 11 and 12, thousands of Cubans had protested in about fifty cities of the country against the backdrop of a deep economic crisis, the worst that the country has been going through for thirty years.
Read alsoIn Cuba, the repression one year after the "11 J"
These gatherings, unprecedented since the 1959 revolution, left one dead and dozens injured, and more than 1,300 people were arrested according to the NGO Cubalex, whose headquarters is in Miami.
According to the government, 790 demonstrators are being prosecuted, of whom 488 have already been sentenced, some up to 25 years in prison.
"
With everything that's happened, I don't think anyone is going to risk doing the same thing
," Orestes Sandoval, 80, told AFP in a queue to buy cigarettes in the city. the center of Havana.
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