Beatriz Johnson Urrutia, secretary of the PCC in the province of Santiago de Cuba, stated that "as always, the people understood," referring to the justifications she provided to hundreds of demonstrators this Sunday at the location where the mass protests of March 17th began.
During an appearance on the state-run channel TurquinoTeVe, the leader admitted, "We cannot deny that it was a situation of great tension," although she then sought to downplay the significance of the protest: "But, as always, the people understood it, because they saw the highest authorities of this province facing the problems head-on."
Johnson pointed to the shortage of fuel and power outages as the causes of public discontent.
However, on Monday night, the people of Santiago de Cuba took to the streets once again, this time in Micro 9 of the José Martí Urban Center, a bustling area more commonly known as El Distrito.
To the rhythm of conga music, the crowd chanted "Yo me erizo" and launched into protests against the leader Miguel Díaz-Canel with refrains like: "There's no food, there's no power / Pin... for the president."
In the local television video, Johnson attempted to downplay the widespread public discontent: "I can't say there was any show of aggression or anything like that against us; quite the opposite, there were shouts of approval when one arrives."
The reality that the official is trying to downplay is that the people of Santiago shouted "liar" at her; they barely let her speak and questioned both her words and those of the Díaz-Canel government.
The eastern city woke up this Tuesday in an atmosphere of "revolutionary fervor," with squares occupied by police and military forces, accompanied by acts of revolutionary reaffirmation, some locals confirmed to CiberCuba.
The party leader, who has recently been mocked by Cubans both on the island and abroad, toured the sites that have been the backdrop for protests in Santiago de Cuba this Tuesday.
The communicator Yosmany Mayeta Labrada posted on Facebook that Johnson visited El Cobre and Micro 9, in the José Martí district, and shared photos of what he described as a "meager communist intervention in the central park 'la Placita' on Santo Tomás street, right in the heart of Santiago de Cuba."
The Castro regime responded with arrests to the peaceful protests that took place in Cuba since March 17.
Cubalex, a non-governmental organization advocating for human rights, reported that there are accounts of violent arrests aimed at repressing protesters, as well as cases of individuals who are forcibly disappeared.
One of the protesters who was violently detained on the morning of March 18 in El Cobre, Santiago de Cuba, was Oriesel García. He, along with another unidentified young man from the same area, remains in custody due to the protests.
According to reports from Cubalex, Leandro Tamayo and another young man named Raúl, both from the city of Bayamo, are also in detention for their participation in the demonstrations that took place in that eastern city.
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