After Hurricane Ian left Cuba in the dark, protestors took to the streets. Now the government is set to charge them for the electricity they are using to protest.
by the staff of the Village Voice
New York – In a major victory for the Cuban revolution, the government of the island announced that it was formally recognizing the “power and authority” of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Cuba.
But in another stunning betrayal for the revolution, officials have set to try three young Cubans on charges of terrorism for having taken part in a noisy “power outages” protest on the island’s shores last September.
In all, five young people, aged 17, 20, 21, 28, and 21, were convicted by a court in central Cuba of terrorism for “the use of explosives on public transportation.” As the trial was going on, the government filed in court a civil suit against the five young men for “damage to public property.”
In other news, in the aftermath of Hurricane Ian there are reports out of the island that anti-government forces had attacked a power plant before Hurricane Ian struck.
This past week, the United States and its allies imposed a naval blockade on Cuba. Meanwhile, in Washington, Senator Patrick Leahy, the Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman, urged Obama to impose “a full embargo [on Cuba]” as a way to force the Cuban government to respect human rights.
The Cuban government also announced that it would set up a new National Council on Human Rights with the goal of protecting citizens and providing legal, health, and education support.
On Sunday, the government also released a new report of its own, written in English and Spanish, criticizing the U.S. blockade as “ineffective,” “counterproductive” and “counter-revolutionary.” The report went on to criticize the “counterproductive” U.S. policy because it was designed to “prevent the re-establishment of a democratic and human rights regime in Cuba,” but the government’s policy was not “anti-communist” because “people’s aspirations have always been recognized in Cuba