During and in the aftermath of the historic mass protests of July 11-14, 2021, the Cuban regime unleashed a wave of brutal repression. The Cuban human rights organization Cubalex documented a total of 1,124 arrests (566 of which remained in custody) by Oct. 19. This did not include hundreds who received police citations and fines for simply marching on the streets. As reported by Agence France-Presse, as of mid-February 2022 nearly 900 individuals had been charged, including 55 under the age of 18. Prison terms have ranged between 2 and 30 years.

Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and the international media reported on arbitrary arrests, abuse of detainees and "jiffy justice," often without the presence of defense lawyers.

An Oct. 19, 2021, Washington Post article shed light on specific cases of abuse. Twenty-year-old Michel Parra was arrested for marching peacefully in Matanzas and taken to a state security interrogation facility, where he was slapped, kicked while on the floor and hit repeatedly with a baton. Independent journalist Orelvys Cabrera, The Washington Post reported, was detained and "forced to strip naked in front of military officials," and was placed in a small, crowded cell for 33 days and fed "rice with dirt." Another dissident, 39-year-old Maria Cristina Garrido, was thrown into a cell whose floor was covered with feces for refusing to yell "Viva Fidel!"

Speaking of Fidel, after being convicted of leading an armed attack on a military camp in 1953, he was sent to the Isle of Pines Model Prison. In an April 14, 1954, prison letter to a friend, Castro boasted about that day's meal: "I am going to dine on spaghetti with squid (he was allowed to cook his own food), Italian bonbons and fresh coffee and then smoke a four-inch H. Upman cigar." "They look after me; they take good care of me," he continued.

ATTEMPTING TO PUT THE 'WILD COLT OF TECHNOLOGIES' BACK INTO THE STABLE

Back in 2007, then-Minister of Communications Ramiro Valdez denounced the dangers of the internet and announced his intention to limit the population's access to it. "The wild colt of new technologies," he said, "can and must be controlled." He feared that internet communications could be used to spread dangerous concepts such as democracy and freedom.

Through the internet and social media Cubans learned about the mass protests of July 11 that began seemingly spontaneously in the western town of San Antonio de los Banos, spreading soon thereafter to dozens of cities and towns. Incidentally, 89-year-old Ramiro Valdez showed up to the San Antonio demonstrations in an attempt to calm down protesters but was shouted away with chants of "Asesino! Asesino!" and "Libertad! Libertad!" A previously unimaginable turn of events.

Only five weeks after the July protests, Cuban authorities passed Decree 35 as an attempt to put the "wild colt" back into its stable. The decree demanded that internet providers interrupt, suspend or cancel services of any user that publishes false information against "public morality" and "respect for public order." The Ministry of the Interior and the military were, thus, charged with preventing and eradicating what Decree 35 dubbed "cybersecurity" threats.

THE VIOLIN CONCERT AND THE NOV. 15 PROTEST THAT NEVER WAS

Never taking responsibility for Cuba's misery and popular discontent, the regime played a violin concert that included some of its all-time greatest hits: "It's the fault of the American blockade," "Imperialist USA" and "Miami's Cuban mafia."

In September 2021, Cuban playwright Yunior Garcia Aguilera, one of the leaders of the San Isidro Movement, began organizing a protest through the Archipelago Group Facebook page. It was scheduled for Nov. 15, but the government unleashed civilian pro-government mobs to harass Garcia Aguilera and other protest organizers. The government banned the protests and kept Garcia Aguilera from embarking on a solo march on the 14th. He had intended to march carrying a white rose, an allusion to Cuban martyred patriot Jose Marti's poem "I Cultivate A White Rose." He had to settle for waving the rose through his window next to a handwritten sign that read "My house is being blockaded." Fearing for his safety, Garcia Aguilera left Cuba a few days later bound to Madrid, where Marti had been deported by colonial authorities after his release from a prison in the Isle of Pines.

"And for the cruel one whose blows/Break the heart by which I live/Thistle nor thorn I give/For him, too, I have a white rose" (J. Marti).

The time for poems is over! Marti died in battle in 1896, while charging Spanish troops. He was shot dead, riding a white horse, dressed in a three-piece suit.

To be continued.

Luis Martinez-Fernandez is the author of "Revolutionary Cuba: A History" and the forthcoming book "When the World Turned Upside Down: Politics, Culture, and the Unimaginable Evenest of 2019-2022." Readers can reach him at LMF_Column@yahoo.com. To find out more about Luis Martinez-Fernandez and read features by other Creators Syndicate writers and cartoonists, visit the Creators Syndicate website at www. creators.com.

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