Cuban prosecutor warns playwright who organizes march

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HAVANA (AP) – Playwright Yunior García, one of the organizers of a march denied by Cuban authorities, was warned by the Prosecutor’s Office Thursday about the criminal consequences if he persists in holding the public protest.

García and several members of his Archipiélago digital platform asked the authorities for permission to hold a peaceful demonstration under the rights explicitly set forth in the new constitution. However, his demand was harshly rejected by the government, which described it as an “illicit” way of destroying socialism, which is marked as “irrevocable” in the Magna Carta itself.

“This gives me the idea that it is a threat that comes from power,” Garcia told a small group of journalists outside the Havana Provincial Prosecutor’s Office, where he had been summoned by officials to appear.

“I do not perceive that there is a single institution in the country where I was born that is on our side, on the side of the citizen that we are not mercenaries, nor are we receiving orders from anywhere, we are simply openly showing a difference of opinion, criteria, perspectives about the country we dream of and want to build ”, added the playwright.

In September García and a dozen people presented a request for authorization for a demonstration – which they described as civic and peaceful – in a central avenue in the capital for November 20, demanding political changes and the release of prisoners. Others did the same in eight cities across the country.

The government’s response was to establish for that day a day of National Defense – rescue and rescue exercises that mobilize civilians and the military – for which the group moved the date to November 15.

The day before, the governor of Havana reported a popular plan to commemorate the 502 anniversary of the capital with street demonstrations precisely for November 15 and 16 and within the framework of a growing relaxation of social isolation caused by the COVID-19 pandemic.

Now also added the warning of the Prosecutor’s Office to García.

“Taking into account the manifest decision of some of these citizens in the desire to maintain their intention to carry out these marches and therefore ignore the denial … (the Prosecutor’s Office) initiated the warnings to several of these citizens of the criminal legal consequences” said the chief deputy prosecutor of the province of Havana, Yaimara Angulo, in a statement before journalists in which she did not accept questions.

The march proposed by Archipelago seeks to be a kind of continuity of the demonstrations of July 11 and 12, when thousands of citizens took to the streets in a disorganized manner in various parts of the country -in protests that have been seen on the island since the decade of the 90- with demands as diverse as an end to blackouts, rising prices and shortages up to political changes.

One person died and an undetermined number was detained – the government only reported on some defendants – precisely for those who are now claiming García and Archipiélago. Many of the demonstrations ended in vandalism with shattered windows, damaged patrols and injured people.

The government in turn called on its supporters to take to the streets and, although it recognized many of the needs and criticisms, it considered that the demonstration was fueled by interest groups in the United States.