Cuba is cracking down on critics. Yunior Garcia Aguilera says he'll protest anyway

Garcia Aguilera is not the standard anti-government Cuban dissident. He has labored for years in state-run theater and tv productions, is vital of the US embargo on the island and says he is more liberal than Cuba's "conservative" management. Cuban state-run media this week in contrast him to famend Czech playwright and human rights advocate Vaclav Havel, though the outline was not meant as a praise.Cuban state TV has broadcast recording of Garcia Aguilera's private telephone calls, and aired applications alleging murky ties between the playwright and darkish forces allegedly bent on toppling Cuba's greater than six-decade-old revolution. In one telephone name, Garcia Aguilera could be heard having a perfunctory dialog with a widely known anti-Castro Cuban exile Ramon Saul Sanchez, who provides Garcia Aguilera his assist. Cuban authorities officers handled the decision as damning proof that the playwright has been in contact with Cuban exiles in Florida, whom the federal government accuses of plotting terrorist assaults on the island. And in a video that aired Monday on the Cuba's Reasons tv program, an area physician named Carlos Leonardo Vázquez González confirmed pictures of a convention that he mentioned he attended with Garcia Aguilera and different Cuban authorities critics in Madrid in 2019.

Vázquez González additionally mentioned in this system that he was truly a double agent, reporting again to Cuban state safety on Garcia Aguilera."What we are seeing in Yunior is the creation and performance of a counterrevolutionary," Vázquez González mentioned.Garcia Aguilera confirmed the authenticity of the telephone name and the convention however mentioned they have been misrepresented on TV. He denies receiving any funding from overseas governments or exile teams, and insists that he is pushing for democratic change from inside Cuba utilizing authorized avenues.

In assist of his plan to protest, Garcia Aguilera fashioned a bunch known as Archipelago, which has over 31,000 followers on Facebook. Group members say they too are harassed for his or her activism, and complain of being adopted by plainclothes state safety brokers and receiving threats by authorities officers. Members additionally accuse Cuba's state telecom supplier of stopping Cubans from texting the phrase archipelago in Spanish or the date of their deliberate protest -- a long-established censorship tactic on the island. CNN has independently confirmed the messaging block.In October, Garcia Aguilera posted photos on social media of the carcass and blood and feathers of a lifeless chook that have been unfold throughout the doorway to his condo in the course of the evening -- a gory scene that he understood as a warning to halt his activism. He blamed the federal government for the vandalism, saying that police monitoring his home would have been conscious of who was accountable. Cuban officers haven't responded to his allegations of harassment.On Monday, Garcia Aguilera's spouse additionally filmed neighbors finishing up a nighttime "acto de repudio" or "act of repudiation" -- chanting authorities slogans on the couple's doorstep and "warning" him to cease his activism.Nevertheless, Garcia Aguilera and a handful of different protest organizers say they're intent on transferring ahead with their deliberate march. They say they need peaceable protesters arrested after demonstrations on July 11 to be launched, more ensures for particular person freedoms and a lifting of official censorship.

A harmful time to protest

According to the Cubalex group that displays authorized points on the island, at the least 1,175 Cubans have been arrested following the July 11 protests when scores of individuals took to the streets to demand larger freedoms and financial situations -- the most important demonstration to happen in Cuba because the 1959 revolution.While authorities officers mentioned they focused protestors who attacked police and looted shops, dozens of individuals mentioned they have been violently arrested for marching peacefully or merely filming the protests.

Government officers insist that the island's structure grants Cubans the precise to protest, however in observe, demonstrations are rapidly damaged up by police and authorities critics are accused of being "mercenaries" within the make use of of Cuba's Cold War nemesis, the United States. "Having different opinions, including political ones, doesn't constitute a crime," mentioned Rubén Remigio Ferro, the president of the Supreme People's Court of Cuba, at a press convention in July shortly after the protests. "Thinking differently, questioning what's going on, to demonstrate is not a crime."Those feedback indicating a gap for some dissent are what impressed Garcia Aguilera and different members of the Archipelago group to use to carry peaceable marches in numerous cities throughout the island, the playwright advised CNN.The Cuban authorities nevertheless has described the deliberate marches as a pretext invented by Cuban exiles and the US authorities that may result in an invasion of Cuba "by the enemy." It has introduced island-wide army workout routines for a similar day."[The protest] promoters, their public projections and ties with subversive organizations or agencies financed by the US government have the open intention of changing the political system in our country," Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel mentioned at a speech earlier than the Central Committee of the Cuban Communist Party in October.Already Cuba's state-run run media has broadcast photos of militias coaching with AK-47's and members of "Committee's for the Defense of the Revolution" patrolling streets with metallic batons.

Garcia Aguilera has since moved the proposed march from November 20 to November 15, though the Cuban authorities is unlikely to permit protestors to participate whatever the date. He mentioned the federal government's overreaction to his proposed march has solely confirmed his level. "They have shown there's no rule of law," he mentioned. "There's no possibility for citizens to legally, peacefully and orderly show their dissent to those power."With a lot rigidity within the air, it is unclear what number of Cubans will be a part of Garcia Aguilera's name to protest however already the initiative threatens to additional deteriorate frayed US and Cuban relations."The Cuban regime is failing to meet the people's most basic needs. That includes food. That includes medicine. Now is a chance to listen to the Cuban people and to make a positive change," State Department spokesman Ned Price mentioned In October.