OPINION | Cuba is experiencing a terrifying repression. Protests are an opportunity for change

Editor’s note: Anamely Ramos is an art curator, student of Anthropology, former Amnesty International Conscience Dam and member of the San Isidro de Cuba Movement. Elina Castillo Jiménez is a lawyer specializing in public international law and human rights and in charge of campaigns for the Caribbean for Amnesty International. The opinions expressed here are solely his.

(CNN Spanish) – On July 11, thousands of people came out to demonstrate peacefully in the streets of Havana and other parts of Cuba. They marched in to claim for their postponed rights for decades and for a dignified life. The most recurrent cries were “Libertad” and “Patria y Vida”.

Faced with these historic protests, the Cuban government used repression to silence dissent. Cuban authorities deployed security forces to beat and detain those who peacefully exercised their right to freedom of expression. Several people, including independent journalists, denounce that the Police are monitoring their homes, 24 hours a day, as happened in November 2020.

Hundreds of people have been detained, including high-profile human rights defenders in the country, such as Luis Manuel Otero, of the San Isidro Movement, Berta Soler, of the Ladies in White, and José Daniel Ferrer. According to reports received by Amnesty International, many families are currently unaware of the whereabouts and situation of their loved ones detained in the context of the protests, which could constitute cases of forced disappearance of persons, a crime under international law. The Cuban government has denied that they have disappeared after the demonstrations.

However, the Cuban authorities insist on passing off the violence carried out by state agents as an ideological conflict. The reality is different: an asymmetrical conflict between a peaceful people and their authorities who silence and repress any alternative voice.

Cuban civil society has tried by all possible means a non-violent understanding. Not only has it not been listened to, it has been systematically repressed. According to the Prisoners Defenders organization, there are more than 150 people detained for political reasons, as of July 1. The Cuban government has not given figures of detainees.

In part, these protests and other recent ways of expressing social discontent have been catalyzed by the opening of internet access in Cuba. However, this access is strictly controlled by the Cuban authorities, who intend to extend to the digital space the same control network that they have had for decades, over what is said and shared in the country. During the protests, there were internet outages. Social networks such as Facebook, WhatsApp and Instagram were interrupted in Cuba since July 12. This is not the first time that the Cuban authorities have extended their censorship policy to the internet.

Like what we have seen in other countries in the Americas in recent times, these historic protests could have been triggered by the current economic situation in the country, which also has an impact on the full enjoyment of the economic, social, and cultural rights of women. people in Cuba. Since 2019, the population has been facing shortages of food, medicine and fuel.

This situation appears to have intensified during 2020, mainly due to covid-19, which has exacerbated pre-existing problems throughout the region. The collapse of hospitals and the crisis of shortages of several months ago, together with economic measures such as the creation of dollar stores and the currency exchange in the middle of a pandemic, were catalysts for the protests. Cuban authorities have attributed the current economic situation to the embargo imposed by the United States for decades.

Although the embargo hinders or limits the possibility of assistance, as Amnesty International has constantly denounced and as experts from the United Nations and others have highlighted in the past, it must not be forgotten that it is not this embargo that has taken the stick. to suppress the voices of those who protest.

That has been the Cuban government. In fact, President Miguel Díaz-Canel and senior government officials have used a stigmatizing, criminalizing, and divisive narrative to try to misrepresent reality: that people are crying out for change and that their authorities must respect the human rights of all Cubans. .

Not only is the physical integrity of the Cuban people at stake today, but also their future.

People are fighting for the authorities to stop the repression, release those who have been arbitrarily detained, and re-establish the internet. But beyond that, he is fighting to build a free society where the rights of all people are respected.