Forum Post: Occupy Havana!
Posted 12 years ago on March 14, 2012, 2:30 p.m. EST by darrenlobo
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13 protestors occupy a church in Havana demanding an end to the repression:
Trece opositores ocupan una Iglesia en La Habana para exigir el cese de la represión
Quieren que esa y otras demandas sean escuchadas por el Papa. Por una acción similar, siete activistas fueron detenidos en Pinar de Río.
They want this and other demands to be heard by the Pope. For a similar action, seven activists were arrested in Pinar de Rio.
Thirteen opponents, including five women, remain from Tuesday at a church in Havana for taking advantage of the proximity of the Pope's visit, making public demands for political opening on the island and require the cessation of repression.
"There they are, have submitted a letter to the Church and are awaiting a response. I will" (at some point), told AFP the priest Roberto Betancourt, pastor of the Basilica of Our Lady of Charity, in the neighborhood Centro Habana, where opponents, members of the Republican Party of Cuba (PRC), continued on Wednesday.
The PRC activist Julio Beltran said the occupants of the temple want their demands heard by the Pope.
According to AFP, in the Temple office several people lined up Wednesday morning to take shifts of baptisms, and showed no police presence nearby.
However, Beltran told CUBA DIARY opponents have been threatened by the authorities to get them out of the temple "by force" and the independent agency Talk Press reported that the church is "besieged by agents of State Security and the Police National. "
PRC members have done similar acts in Holguin, Santiago de Cuba, Las Tunas and Pinar del Rio, said human rights activist Ignacio Estrada.
In the latter province, seven dissidents were arrested with violence in the parish of San Juan y Martinez, CUBA DIARY denounced the dissident Jose Rolando Caceres.
Caceres said the dissidents called for "peacefully, without violence," the local priest to make him reach the authorities a request for dialogue.
"He told us that the Church was not a way to politics or to prove anything against the regime," said the activist.
He added he was "detained by State Security and dragged to the police station" at a time when it left the temple. Other opponents were caught trying to support him.
"We are not criminals," said Caceres and insisted that the attitude of the opponents is "peaceful." Wednesday warned again attempt to deliver the letter to the claims of the PRC in the parish of San Juan y Martinez.
The document, published on its website, the PRC calls "unconditional release" of political prisoners, an end to "repression and persecution" of opponents, a "higher wages and pensions to retirees according to the cost of living "and" right to private property, freedom of expression and association. "
Furthermore, "access to uncensored information including the internet, the media or right to create alternative", "freedom of movement within the island" and the right to "get in and out of the country", a "national pact" and the "step by a provisional government in order to create the legal framework for the operation of the rule of law."
The text, signed by national executive director of the PRC, Vladimir Frias Calderon, also called the people to a "national strike" and "take to the streets to demand their rights."