Cuban Pablo Enrique was arrested this Saturday by State Security for leaving flowers at the Embassy of Ukraine in Havana, in solidarity with that country in the face of the Russian invasion.
As confirmed to this newspaper, he was taken to the Seventh Unit of the National Revolutionary Police, where three agents were waiting for him. There he received “many threats” and a second warning letter. “They are sick with hate,” said Enrique, who presents himself as a Christian and a human rights activist.
“Since my arrival the Sepsa Guards [Servicios Especializados de Protección, S.A.] that attend to the security of the diplomatic headquarters did not allow me to move”, Enrique himself had told on his Twitter account when he approached the Ukrainian diplomatic headquarters, located on Fifth Avenue, in the Havana neighborhood of Miramar.
There he mentioned that the diplomat Iryna Bilyk, third secretary of the Ukrainian Consulate, had to go out to escort him, “because they did not allow me to hang (neither on the fence, nor put on the ground, nor even on a tree in front of the headquarters) a small bouquet of roses that I carried as a token of my solidarity”. The flowers, he concluded with an image, “arrived at their destination, now inside the diplomatic headquarters.”
While the Cuban government has aligned itself with Russia and has blamed the war on the United States, civil organizations and ordinary citizens have shown their support for Ukraine
While the Cuban government has aligned itself with Russia and has blamed the war to the United States and NATOcivil organizations and ordinary citizens have shown their support for Ukraine.
This Thursday, a group of activists issued a public statement of solidarity with the Ukrainian people, which can be signed by anyone who wishes and which has so far received some 300 signatures.
Promoted by Giselle González, Claudio Gaitán, Fernando Almeyda, Leo Fernández, Saily González and Magdiel Jorge Castro, the text distances itself from the regime, condemning “an imperialist war that seeks to further destabilize a nation that has the right to self-determination.”
On the other hand, relatives of the prisoners of July 11 have also demonstrated in favor of Ukraine these days. Pedro López, father-in-law of the sister of Andy García Lorenzo, sentenced to seven years in prison in Santa Clara, said on his networks that he had just called the Ukrainian embassy in Cuba “to make clear the solidarity of our family with the people of Ukraine and make it clear that the cowardly position of the Cuban government does not represent the sentiments of this beautiful peace-loving people”.
In his post, he also published the telephone numbers of the diplomatic headquarters and asked for freedom for García Lorenzo and for all political prisoners.
The Ukrainian chargé d’affaires in Cuba, Oleksandr Kalinchukhad asked the Cubans, this Friday, to go out on the street to show support for Ukraine. “We can change the position of the Cuban government, we can change the overall situation,” he told AméricaTeVé.
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