Cubans denounce preemptive action on anniversary of protests

Havana’s streets were quiet on Monday, on the one-year anniversary of unprecedented anti-government demonstrations, with Cubans denouncing a pre-emptive security crackdown to avoid a repeat.

Amid fresh allegations of human rights abuses and demands by the United States for the Cuban government to “respect” the voices of dissidents, President Miguel Diaz-Canel said he was confident the country would emerge from a “complex situation” like him called.

There had been calls for fresh protests to mark the anniversary, but more than a dozen dissidents, artists and independent journalists said on Twitter they had received warnings from police not to leave their homes, from which some reported patrols outside.

This included the parents of protesters in prison.

“I’m under siege,” tweeted Yurka Rodriguez, mother of 25-year-old Yunaikis Linares, one of hundreds put behind bars by the communist regime.

Rodriguez used the hashtag #SOSCuba.

“No one will take to the streets,” 18-year-old student Carlos Rafael Dominguez told AFP.

“They (the government) will not be overthrown,” he said resignedly.

Maria de los Angeles Marquez, 64, added: “People resist going out” because of the severe penalties – up to 25 years in some cases – imposed for involvement in last year’s spontaneous outburst of anger against the government were imposed.

Mass protests erupted across Cuba on July 11-12 last year, with demonstrators calling for food and freedom amid the island’s worst economic crisis in 30 years and shortages of fuel, medicines and food.

According to human rights observers, one person died, dozens were injured and 1,300 people were arrested during a crackdown by the security forces.

Since then, hundreds, including minors, have been sentenced to prison for crimes such as “disturbing public order”, “contempt” or “incitement to hatred”.

In a report released on the one-year anniversary of the protests, Human Rights Watch describes “systematic human rights abuses” committed by the government to quell further dissent.

The report listed allegations of “arbitrary detention, abusive law enforcement, beatings and other instances of ill-treatment, some of which amount to torture.”

“One year ago today, thousands of Cubans protested demanding rights and freedoms, but the government gave many of them only two options: prison or exile,” said Juan Pappier, HRW’s principal researcher on the Americas.

Diaz-Canel, who described the protests as “a vandalist coup,” tweeted Monday that “if there is anything to celebrate on this July 11th, it is the victory of the Cuban people, the Cuban Revolution.”

Cuba has been the target of US sanctions for the past six decades, blaming the government for the island nation’s economic woes.

Citing the background of “permanent economic, political and ideological siege,” the president said he was “convinced that we will also emerge from this complex situation.”

Cuba accuses the United States of fueling last year’s protests.

In a statement Monday, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Washington recognizes the “determination and courage” of the Cuban people “who continue to fight for respect for human rights.”

The HRW report documents 155 cases of abuse as part of the “July 2021 repression of protesters.”

This included the detention of people peacefully protesting or en route to demonstrations, and detainees who were held incommunicado, sometimes for months, without access to relatives or a lawyer.

Unhygienic prison cells and little or no access to food, medicine, clean water or Covid-19 masks have also been reported.

“Many[detainees]said they were subjected to abusive and repeated interrogations… Some were beaten, forced to squat naked, or otherwise ill-treated, including sleep deprivation and other ill-treatment, which in some cases amounted to torture,” the report said.

Orestes Sandoval, an 80-year-old who is queuing to buy cigarettes in the Cuban capital, told AFP a new round of protests was unlikely.

“With everything that’s happened, I don’t think anyone would dare to do something like that.”