A Reuters report on November 30 said: Secretary of State Antony Blinken said on Tuesday that the United States had imposed visa restrictions on nine Cuban officials as a result of their government’s crackdown on protesters earlier this month.
Officials in the Ministry of Interior and the Revolutionary Armed Forces, according to Blinken, have been “implicated in attempts to silence the voices of the Cuban people through repression and unjust detentions,” he said.
According to Blinken, “the Cuban regime bullied activists with government-sponsored mobs, confined journalists and opposition members to their homes, revoked journalists’ credentials to suppress the free press, and arbitrarily detained Cuban citizens who attempted to peacefully protest” in the days leading up to Nov. 15.
In July, the Caribbean island saw its largest street protests in decades. According to human rights groups, hundreds of people have been detained as a result of those protests.
To deny Cubans their freedom of expression and peaceful assembly, “designated individuals” acted today.
The planned demonstration in support of increased civil rights on November 15 was a flop because most dissidents stayed at home in response to government pressure.
The United States maintains a Cold War-era embargo on Cuba, which the Cuban government claims are behind the demonstrations. Officials from the United States have denied any involvement in such a plan.
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