Many of those present carried Cuban flags, posters against Díaz-Canel or with messages demanding the release of those arrested as a result of last year’s protests. Hundreds of members of the Cuban community in Miami demonstrated this Monday in the American city to remember the historic protests held just a year ago in Cuba against the government of Miguel Díaz-Canel.

In the afternoon, a crowd gathered outside the Versailles restaurant, an emblematic place of Cuban exile in Little Havana, before marching through that neighborhood.

“I am here supporting my brother who lives in Cuba. Since they can’t protest, I do it here. It is my grain of sand,” said Ernesto Salleherri, a 59-year-old Cuban who has only been in the United States for a month. Many of those present carried Cuban flags, posters against Díaz-Canel or with messages demanding the release of those arrested as a result of last year’s protests.

According to the Miami-based human rights NGO Cubalex, one person was killed, dozens were injured and more than 1,300 were detained in the demonstrations on July 11 and 12, 2021 in Cuba.

“We have to give all possible support to the people of Cuba. He is fighting alone within a country militarized by an unscrupulous dictatorship for life,” said Ramón Saúl Sánchez, president of the group of Cuban exiles Movimiento Democracia.

“The people of Cuba deserve to live in freedom, with social justice, independence and sovereignty,” he added. For Michelle Prado, 26, it was important to be present in memory of her grandfather, who was a political prisoner in Cuba.

“Many people have been arrested just for expressing their opinions and protesting, so I think it’s important that we go out and show our support,” he said in English.

Last year’s protests in Cuba were the largest since the triumph of the revolution in 1959. Thousands of people took to the streets in nearly 50 cities across the country shouting “Freedom” and “We are hungry,” at a time of grave economic crisis on the island. Despite the repression of that movement, Ramón Saúl Sánchez is confident that the situation will change in his native country.

“Every time I have more hope and more faith in the people of Cuba,” he said. “And the dictatorship itself reaffirms it to me with all the fear it has that a peaceful and unarmed, repressed and hungry people will go out on the streets and demand their rights.”

A year later: the controversy over the protests in Cuba against the regime continues
Cuba will emerge from the “complex situation” in which it finds itself, promised President Miguel Díaz-Canel, on the anniversary of the historic protests against the government. The streets of Havana looked calm this Monday, but several dissidents denounced having been prevented from leaving their homes.

“We are also going to get out of this complex situation. And we are going to go out revolutionizing”, because “the Revolution has always been revolutionizing itself, and it has done so in a scenario of constant economic, political and ideological siege,” Díaz-Canel assured on Twitter. “If there is something to commemorate this July 11, it is the victory of the Cuban people, of the Cuban Revolution,” added the president. Tranquility reigned this Monday in the streets of Havana, but a strong presence of security agents dressed in civilian clothes could be observed since the weekend in some nerve centers of the city, and the fear that new revolts could be registered was latent.

“Yes, I am afraid, because something has to happen, since this is very hard and you can’t see the tip anywhere,” 64-year-old fortuneteller María de los Ángeles Márquez told GLM in a nearby park. to the National Capitol, one of the main stages of last year’s demonstrations.

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