Cuba allows first non-state-sponsored protest in decades
In this Thursday, April 4, 2019 photo, Grettel Montes de Oca Valdes, a professional dancer and founder of the group Cubans in Defense of Animals poses with four kittens that she has received in her house in Havana, Cuba. HAVANA -- On Sunday morning a group of animal-lovers will march a mile down one of Havana's main thoroughfares waving placards calling for an end to animal cruelty in Cuba.
There is no indication Cuba is moving toward unfettered freedom of assembly: The state still clamps down on unapproved political speech with swift and massive police mobilizations, waves of arrests and temporary detentions. So a march by independent civil society groups seeking government action will be a remarkable sight in a country where, for nearly 60 years, virtually every aspect of life was part of a single chain of command ending in a supreme leader named Castro.
The animal-rights march is part of a wider change in the relationship between the Cuban state and independent civil society -- Cubans trying to effect change in their society while making clear to everyone, particularly the authorities, that they have no interest in crossing the red line known as "politics."
"It's part of a trend toward recognizing civil society, in a tacit manner, sometimes a timid one, but one that's growing, little by little," said Yassel Padron Kunakbaeva, a blogger and intellectual who describes him as a Marxist revolutionary. "Activism in Cuba has taken place despite the state," Diaz said. "In my opinion, it's not because the state has felt the need to open up, but because it's had no other option than to accept reality and people with a lot of courage have defied the limits and pushed the boundaries back a little."
The country has one officially recognized animal-rescue group, Aniplant, and perhaps a dozen other small, non-state organizations in Havana and other major cities. In recent years the groups have collected thousands of signatures asking for an animal-protection law, with no success to date.
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