Cuba is experiencing an unprecedented period of unrest. The largest protests in the country’s history have spread across the island in reaction to a deepening economic crisis and the communist nation’s dictatorial regime.
Ignited by the continuing repression of the Cuban regime, the tightening of US-backed sanctions by previous President Donald Trump – sanctions that have been in place since the early 1960s – and the devastation caused by the coronavirus pandemic, the protests call for food and medicine, and democratic freedoms which the Cuban people have been denied for 60 years.
President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who has held the office since April 2018, refuses to acknowledge the protests, instead considering the protestors mercenaries sent by the US to destabilise the communist state.