Cuba arrests activists as government blames unrest on U.S. interference
By Sarah Marsh and Nelson Acosta
Reuters
HAVANA (Reuters) -Cuba blamed historic protests that took place over the weekend on U.S. economic asphyxiation and detained some of the highest profile activists, while the Biden administration said it supported the Cuban people s right to demonstrate.
The streets of Havana were quiet on Monday, although there was a heavy police presence and the capitol building, where more than a thousand had congregated the day before, was cordoned off. Outages in mobile internet - the only way many Cubans have of accessing the web - were frequent.
Biden calls Cuba protests remarkable and a call for freedom
By Andrea Rodriguez
Cuba Protests: President Biden releases official statement
Protests broke out in Cuba as people demanded freedom and called on the disbandment of the country’s communist dictatorship. President Joe Biden released a statement in solidarity with the thousands of Cubans who protested about shortages and rising prices for food and medicine amid the coronavirus pandemic.
HAVANA (AP) - President Joe Biden on Monday called protests in Cuba remarkable and a clarion call for freedom, praising thousands of Cubans who took the streets to protest food shortages and high prices amid the coronavirus crisis one of the island s biggest antigovernment demonstrations in recent memory.
Biden calls remarkable Cuba protests a call for freedom
The demonstrations over food shortages and high prices amid the COVID-19 crisis have marked one of the biggest Cuban antigovernment displays in recent memory. Author: AAMER MADHANI and JONATHAN LEMIRE (Associated Press) Published: 5:59 PM CDT July 12, 2021 Updated: 5:59 PM CDT July 12, 2021
WASHINGTON President Joe Biden on Monday called protests in Cuba “remarkable and a “clarion call for freedom,” praising thousands of Cubans who took the streets to protest food shortages and high prices amid the coronavirus crisis one of the island s biggest antigovernment demonstrations in recent memory.
“The Cuban people are demanding their freedom from an authoritarian regime. I don’t think we’ve seen anything like this protest in a long long time, if, quite frankly, ever,” Biden said in a brief exchange with reporters at the start of a meeting with mayors an
Cuba sees largest protests in decades as economy deteriorates and COVID-19 pandemic worsens Thousands of Cubans engaged in mass demonstrations on Sunday in and near Havana and other cities throughout the country in the largest wave of protests on the island since 1994. Like the earlier
Maleconazo, the current wave of protests has been driven by years of economic hardship, with the COVID-19 pandemic serving as a trigger event to expose the rotten foundations of the Cuban government’s petty-bourgeois nationalist perspective.
Anti-government protesters march in Havana, Cuba, Sunday, July 11, 2021. (AP Photo/Eliana Aponte, file)
Protests appear to have begun in San Antonio de los Baños, a municipality southwest of the capital. However, as videos circulated on social media, they quickly spread elsewhere, including Havana, and most of the country’s major cities, including Santiago de Cuba, Santa Clara, Matanzas, Cienfuegos and Holguín, as well as numerous smaller towns such as