MIAMI – With protests already planned in South Florida to commemorate the one-year anniversary of the July 11 Cuba protests, activists demanding freedom for Cuba already began demonstrating in Washington.
Additionally, the Biden administration announced sanctions on Cuba in the run-up to the anniversary.
28 Cuban officials, including some the White House accuse of repressing last year’s protests, now face visa restrictions. Officials did not identify them.
“Instead of ensuring the safety of the Cuban people and respect for their freedoms of expression and peaceful assembly, these officials permitted or facilitated violent and unjust detentions, sham trials, and prison sentences spanning decades for hundreds of protesters,” Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement.
Human rights organizations who track what is happening on the island say more than 1400 protesters were detained and more than 700 Cubans remain in detention, many of them sentenced to significant prison time.
That includes people like Donaida Perez Paseiro and her husband Loreto Hernandez Garcia from the town of Placetas in the Villa Clara province in central Cuba.
From Cuba, their daughter, Rosabel Sanchez Correa, told Local 10 News that she worries about their situation in prison.
Both are accused of public disorder. Her father faced an eight-year sentence, her stepmother faced a seven-year sentence.