Keystone Today

In the midst of an economic crisis and the COVID-19 pandemic, the people of Cuba are protesting the island nation’s Communist government.

Reuters is reporting that Cuba saw its biggest protests in decades over the weekend of July 10. Protestors are calling for President Miguel Diaz-Canel to resign and drawing awareness to the country’s lack of food and medicine and general conditions. In response, anti-government protestors have been arrested by the country’s security forces.

Sen. Pat Toomey (R-Pennsylvania) took to Twitter to offer support for Cubans in their protests. “It is inspiring to see Cuban citizens standing up to the oppressive communist dictatorship that has repressed their island for over half a century. America stands with those fighting for a free Cuba,” Toomey wrote in a July 12 Tweet.

U.S. Sen. Pat Toomey | Wikimedia Commons

Cuba’s president and the head of the Communist Party has said that the protests are a result of U.S. provocations by hired mercenaries, Reuters reports. Diaz-Canel also said that “provocations” would not be acceptable.

The British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC) reports that anti-government protestors are being arrested by security forces and plainclothes officers, while social media images show protestors being beaten, detained and pepper-sprayed. Diaz-Canel is calling on his supporters to fight the protestors, who are raising their voices amidst the country’s economic collapse, shortages of medicine and food, and increasing prices, in addition to the way the Cuban government has handled the COVID-19 pandemic.

According to the Reuters COVID-19 Tracker, Cuba is reporting about 5,600 new cases of COVID-19 each day and lags behind the U.S. in vaccinations, with about 33% of the country's population having been vaccinated so far.