Hundreds of demonstrators take to the streets in Cuba shouting "freedom"

Hundreds of Cubans took to the streets of Havana on Sunday shouting "freedom" in peaceful demonstrations, which were intercepted by security forces and brigades of government supporters, resulting in violent clashes and arrests.

Clashes between protesters and pro-government demonstrators took place in the central Fraternity Park, in front of the Capitol, where more than a thousand people gathered with a strong presence of military and police forces, who made several arrests.

Largest protest in 27 years

However, a group of several hundred demonstrators managed to evade the police cordon and headed en masse along the emblematic Paseo del Prado towards the Malecon with their arms raised and shouting slogans such as "freedom", "homeland and life" and "dictators", in reference to the country's leaders.

Organized brigades of government supporters also came to the place, shouting "I am Fidel" or "Canel, my friend, the people are with you".

The event could make history, since it is the first time that a large group of Cubans has taken to the streets of Havana to protest against the Government since the famous "Maleconazo" of 1994, at the height of the "special period" crisis.

Internet blackout

Proof of the seriousness of the situation is that the authorities have cut the Internet mobile data service throughout the country, presumably to prevent the dissemination of videos of the protests and to reduce the ability of the participants to gather.

The demonstration in Havana comes after a wave of spontaneous protests this Sunday in different parts of the country, the first of them in San Antonio de los Baños, where a mass of people took to the streets to demand freedom and criticize the government for the lack of food, medicines and the continuous blackouts suffered by this town, which is 30 kilometers east of the capital.

The demonstration in San Antonio, harshly repressed by the police according to witnesses told Efe, was broadcast live on Facebook until the Internet was cut off, which presumably lit the fuse for similar acts in other localities such as Güira de Melena and Alquízar (west), Palma Soriano (east), Cienfuegos (center) and Havana.

The president blames the US.

The demonstrations have arisen at a time of severe crisis in Cuba, which is suffering from a worrisome shortage of medicines and basic products, and is also going through the third and worst wave of covid-19, with extremely high rates of contagion in the most affected regions.

The President of Cuba, Miguel Díaz-Canel, appeared today on two occasions. First he went to San Antonio de Los Baños where, accompanied by a group of supporters and security forces, he accused "mercenary people paid by the U.S. government" of organizing the protests.

He later spoke live on state television, where he urged his supporters to be ready for "combat" in response to the protests against his administration.

U.S. highlights Cubans' "right" to demonstrate "peacefully".

The U.S. State Department on Sunday highlighted the "right" of Cubans to demonstrate "peacefully", amid the popular protests that have taken place in several cities of the Caribbean country.

"Peaceful protests are growing in Cuba as the Cuban people exercise their right to peaceful assembly to express concern about rising cases and deaths of covid-19 and medicine shortages," Julie Chung, the acting undersecretary of state for the U.S. Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, said on her Twitter account.

Chung also praised "the many efforts of the Cuban people mobilizing donations to help neighbors in need." 

The protests have taken place in different localities of the Caribbean country, such as San Antonio de Los Baños, Güira de Melena and Alquízar in the western province of Artemisa, Palma Soriano in Santiago de Cuba and also in some neighborhoods of Havana.

The unprecedented demonstrations are taking place in the midst of a serious economic and health crisis in the Caribbean country, where there is a worrisome lack of food, medicines and other basic products.
This is the largest anti-government protest recorded on the island since the so-called "maleconazo", when in August 1994, in the middle of the "special period", hundreds of people took to the streets of Havana and did not leave until the arrival of the then Cuban leader Fidel Castro.