Cuban Police Arrest More Dissidents
HAVANA TIMES — Police officers violently detained three Cuban political opposition figures in the Havana municipality of Marianao on Thursday, August 16, as they were handing out copies of the “Demanda Ciudadana Por otra Cuba” (Citizens Demand for Another Cuba), reported Cubaencuentro.
Members of the Union Patriotica de Cuba received blows and doses of pepper spray while handing out the petition and were taken to a nearby police station.
“They even repressed people who were filming the incident and others reading the call,” said Antonio G. Rodiles, the project coordinator of Estado de SATS project, which is one of the sponsors of the appeal.
The document — which calls for the ratification by the Cuban government of international pacts signed at the UN in 2008 and the application of the “legal and political guarantees” of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights — had been delivered to the National Assembly this past June.
More channeling of capitalist practices it seems. We are quite familiar with pepper spray, the deterrent of choice used against activists here, as well as beatings by police batons. Any sign of ‘kettling’ yet – a technique that encircles activists then tightens the circle? Then there’s police dressed in robocop garb who ominously beat their shields before charging, water cannons, tasers and the use of provocateurs – police dressed as activists who provoke to give an excuse for police charges, and state-of-the-art tear gas projectiles.
Much to look forward to perhaps but maybe not as bad – capitalists have to work harder at suppression as the inequality gap is so much larger.
And the vouchers are waiting…