Cubans Take to the Streets in Several Cities

This Sunday, July 11, thousands of people took to the streets in different parts of the country. At the time this note was published, El Toque had confirmation of demonstrations in San Antonio de los Baños, Alquízar, Guanajay and Güira de Melena (Artemisa); Güines (Mayabeque); Palma Soriano (Santiago de Cuba), Luyanó and Centro Habana (Havana). There are also reports from Pinar del Río, Villa Clara, Camaguey, Holguín, Granma and Guantánamo.

“The streets belong to the people”, “Homeland and life”, “Freedom”, “We are not afraid” are some of the slogans that men and women of different ages shout, some on bicycles or motorcycles.

According to Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez, President Miguel Díaz-Canel traveled to San Antonio de los Baños “with the revolutionary people mobilized against the imperialist campaign and its salaried agents.”

Minutes later, a live speech by the president was announced. Díaz-Canel immediately denied the legitimacy of the protests and attributed the cause to outsiders. At the end of his speech, he affirmed “the order to battle is given: revolutionaries, take to the streets.”

The simultaneous protests, unprecedented in decades, coincide with the fact that Cuba is going through the worst moment in terms of new infections and deaths from COVID-19 since the beginning of the pandemic. Such is aggravated by the accumulation of an economic crisis that for more than a year has been preventing regular access to food, medicine, hygiene products and other goods and services.

Several participants in the demonstrations broadcast live through their personal accounts on social networks, especially Facebook.

This article was translated into English from the original in Spanish.