HAVANA (12 July 2021) – Clashes, hundreds of arrests and at least one injured officer: this is the toll of yesterday’s new violence in Cuba, where thousands of demonstrators took to the streets in the largest mass protest ever seen on the island in the last 30 years: the president of the republic Miguel Díaz-Canel, the communist dictatorship and an economic situation that continues to worsen, in the grip of American sanctions, has always been in the crosshairs.
The Miami Herald cites the Inventario website, which monitors the situation in the country, according to which yesterday the protests affected at least 25 cities. A video taken at one in the morning and published on Facebook, according to the newspaper, shows hundreds of demonstrators in Palma Soriano (east) calling for freedom to the cry of “Down with the dictatorship” and “Down with Díaz-Canel”. People on the street also asked for medicines, Covid vaccines and “an end to hunger”. In the video we then see a group of people pushing a police car shouting “the dictatorship has just arrived” referring to the police.
The Guardian today publishes an image with three overturned police cars and explains that the protests began in the morning in San Antonio de los Baños (west), as well as in Palma Soriano, and thanks to social media they quickly involved Havana, where in miles they marched along the streets of the center shouting slogans like “homeland and life” and “freedom”.
The agents – in uniform and plainclothes, reports the British newspaper – responded with batons and pepper spray, arresting hundreds of demonstrators who were loaded into vans and taken away. At least one policeman was hit in the head by a stone and was transported to the hospital.
Reuters writes on its website, citing eyewitnesses, that special forces Jeeps equipped with machine guns have been seen on the streets of the capital.
Cuba Clashes, hundreds of arrests
