LET'S FIGHT BACK
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Cuba Brief
To promote a peaceful transition to a Cuba that respects human rights
and political and economic freedoms
San Isidro Movement HQ, where a hunger strike took place following the arrest of one of its members. Courtesy/ Movimiento San Isidro
Today, we remember the nonviolent protests in November 2020 that were the prelude to the nationwide protests of July 2021 that shook the communist dictatorship in Cuba.
Four years ago today, on November 26th, the secret police dressed as healthcare workers raided the San Isidro Movement’s headquarters in Havana and took all the Cuban protesters away.
It marked the midpoint of a sequence of events that started in early November. After sharing a video of a police officer entering his home without a warrant and harassing him on November 6, 2020, Denis Solís González, a rapper, activist, and member of the San Isidro Movement, was arrested in Havana on November 9, 2020.
Members of the San Isidro Movement demonstrated outside the Cuba y Chacón police station on November 12, 2020, calling for Denis Solís’ release. The nonviolent activists received international attention after being brutally attacked by Cuban police the next evening. According to the International Society for Human Rights, a human rights organization with headquarters in Frankfurt, a police motorcycle patrol viciously beat prominent Cuban professor Omara Ruiz Urquiola on November 13th while she was participating in “a peaceful sit-in strike in front of a police station.” She posted a video of the attack on Facebook along with a picture of the blood-stained dress she was wearing at the time. A wider audience was reached when footage of the attack was shown on Telemundo 51.
On November 15, 2020, protesters from the San Isidro Movement arrived at the movement’s headquarters with the intention of performing a number of cultural events in order to secure Denis Solís González’s freedom. In a chemical attack, regime agents tainted the cistern’s water with acid, depriving the occupants of the San Isidro Movement headquarters of potable water. Neighbors, family and friends were prevented from reaching them, and providing water or food.
Ultimate non-violent escalation
The San Isidro Movement protesters responded with an escalation in their nonviolent protest that drew more international attention by organizing a sit-in. On November 18, 2020, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, Esteban Rodríguez, Maykel Castillo, and Humberto Mena initiated a hunger and thirst strike, and Iliana Hernández, Yasser Castellanos, Adrián Rubio, Oscar Casanella, and Osmani Pardo started a hunger strike. They found ways to organize virtual press conferences, and provide upates on their situation.
The dictatorship responded with more violence.
On November 22, 2020 at 12:08am Cuban independent journalist Iliana Hernández posted over Twitter, “they attacked San Isidro Movement headquarters sent by state security repressors, who gave the criminal time to break down the door (approximately 10 minutes), and after a while the patrol appeared.” She added that Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara had been beaten. Later that same day, in response to the provocation, the San Isidro Movement called for protests in parks across Cuba. State security started making preventative arrests of activists and independent journalists. In order to violently targetanyone who managed to get past the security perimeter and enter parks throughout the island, the secret police formed paramilitary groups.
The regime organized a rapid response brigade and cut off the dissident’s phones and internet access on November 26 at 8:00 p.m. Everyone inside the San Isidro Movement headquarters was arrested, beaten, and forced out when secret police, disguised as doctors, raided the building.
Initial list following the raid identified 15 activists detained or missingas follows: Luis M. Otero, Maikel Castillo, Omara Urquiola, Anamely Ramos, Esteban Rodríguez, Abu Duyanah, Katherine Bisquet, Osmani Pardo, Carlos Manuel, Iliana Hdez, Jorge Luis, Yasser Castellanos, Oscar Casanella, Adrian Rubio, and Anyel Valdes.
Most were released the next day, but not all. Michel Matos, a spokesperson for the San Isidro Movement, reported that both Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Anamely Ramos González were detained again at 6:00am on November 27, 2020 by Castro’s secret police and were still missing that afternoon. State security did not want Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara to return to his home, the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement, and Anamely refused to remain under house arrest knowing the plight of Luis Manuel.
The dictatorship thought the matter was resolved. They were wrong.
The Castro regime found itself dealing with far more than 14 protesters in a modest home in Havana’s San Isidro neighborhood. Young people, mostly artists and academics, began gathering in front of the Ministry of Culture on November 27th early in the day, and their numbers grew into the evening, demanding that the Minister meet with the protesters to negotiate terms of a dialogue. Over three hundred dissidents waited outside of the Ministry of Culture when night fell.
Thirty representatives elected by the hundreds gathered went in and met with the officials, and emerged with a commitment to dialogue and to consider the points raised by the protesters. Meanwhile the dictatorship sent truckloads of plainclothes security to surround the demonstrators, and to intimidate them. They also closed off the path to the Ministry of Culture, and began using tear gas and physical force to prevent others from continuing to join the protesters.
Instead of following through with the dialogue they had pledged to conduct to resolve the differences that had generated the protests the dictatorship launched a media assault against the San Isidro Movement, and against the 27N protesters. Less than a year later these frustrations, combined with others, would lead to nationwide protests in Cuba.
The nonviolent legacy
Four years later and most of the San Isidro Movement is now in exile, and two of its founding leaders, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Castillo Pérez, also known as Maykel Osorbo are now prisoners of conscience, but they continue to nonviolently defy the dictatorship.
Luis Manuel is continuing, from prison, to carry out performance art pieces that draw international attention such as “Proof of Life” and “The Blood that is Spiled.” Maykel Castillo Pérez continues to send messages of defiance and calls for solidarity from his prison cell. Both are Amnesty International prisoners of conscience, and their plight draws active support for them around the world.
The San Isidro Movement exposed the racist nature of the Cuban dictatorship, and the shortcomings of those in the Black Lives Matter movement who for ideological reasons remain enamored with the Cuban dictatorship. Both the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch, Pen International, and others went on the record to document the human rights violations carried out against the San Isidro Movement by the communist regime.
Monday, November 25, 2024
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