Page 18 - MONTT LATIN AMERICAN MAGAZINE, OCTUBRE 2021 (English)

Cuba: Civic Marches Will Continue Despite the Prohibitions
For the first time in history, a group requests permission from the Government to carry out a peaceful demonstration. The difference between this new action, and the social outbreak in July, is that it is now a premeditated, provocative political act that shows the undemocratic attitude of the authorities.
The Archipelago collective, led by the playwright Yunior GarcIa Aguilera, maintains November 15th as the date for the so-called Civic Marches for Change, despite the Cuban government’s ban. Castroism, fearful of the repercussion reached so far by the convocation, announced its exhaustive prohibition. Its response indicated that the socialist system imposed on the island is “irrevocable”, as dictated by article four of the new Constitution.
The reasons for the mobilizations are the demand for “the release of all political prisoners, the end of violence, that all the rights of all Cubans be respected and the solution of differences are made through democratic and peaceful means.”
The convocation, unprecedented in Cuba, because official permission had never been requested to carry out an openly opposition march was initially scheduled for November 20th, but after the date was announced, the Government organized military exercises between 18th and 20th November across the country without reference to the demonstration. Archipelago immediately interpreted the movement as an indirect message and “a threat”, and changed the date to 15th.
This manifestation differs from the protests that shook the island on July 11th and 12th, because the explosion at that time was spontaneous by the population due to the economic hardships suffered and the lack of freedom, but the one that is being organized now is an explicit political challenge, because there is an open claim to the Government to respect the existing legal spaces to peacefully express disagreement with the system in the streets.
“It is clear with this response that the Government is not willing to engage in any kind of civilized dialogue or to open political spaces to citizens,” Garcia said hours after receiving the notification from the mayor of Old Havana, Alexis Acosta, prohibiting the march, which aims to walk in silence the boardwalk and some streets of the historic centre to deposit a wreath in front of the statue of José Martí in the Central Park, next to the Parliament headquarters, an act in which it estimates the participation of some 5,000 people. Despite the ban, the organizers announced their decision to maintain the call and to demonstrate on November 15th.
García and the members of Archipelago assure that they will exercise their rights in the same way and will respond “with civility and more civility to authoritarianism.” The president of the Supreme Court himself, Ruben Remigio Ferro, said after the July protests that it was not a crime to think differently, but rather a constitutionally recognized right.
The Situation of
and Authoritarianism
Yunior Garcia, like the rest of the activists, presented letters to several municipal governments requesting permits and invoked article 56 of the Constitution to march on 15-N, which protects the right of assembly, demonstration and association for lawful and peaceful purposes.
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Human Rights
Citizenship
Human Rights Watch documented in detail human rights violations against 130 victims in 13 of the 15 Cuban provinces. Between July and October, the human rights organization interviewed more than 150 people, including activists, victims, relatives, journalists, and lawyers with direct knowledge of the cases, and concluded that the abuses against the protesters followed a deliberate plan whose sole purpose was to silence, however, the protesters. There were more than a 1,000 people arrested for no reason. There are still 500 who are still in prison and many others under home confinement with the threat of worse punishment if they leave their homes. In most cases, the report states, the detainees were held incommunicado and mistreated. The testimonies have revealed the harshness of the Cuban regime: some victims were punished by forcing them to do squats naked, others were locked in cells without light, where they did not know if it was day or night, many others received direct threats. They were told that if they continued to protest there would be reprisals against their families. “There is the same methodology, it is a State policy to stop any effort by the people to exercise their right to peaceful protest,” said José Miguel Vivanco, executive director of Human Rights Watch.