(Photo by Gary Raynaldo ©Diplomatic Times)  A cuban in Old Havana, Cuba sits outside home under poster of late Cuban leader Fidel Castro

By Gary Raynaldo     DIPLOMATIC  TIMES

The United States announced Tuesday the State Department imposed visa restrictions on nine Cuban officials following the government’s crackdown on demonstrators this month. The nine individuals include high-ranking members of the Ministries of the Interior and the Revolutionary Armed Forces, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken said in a statement. Blinken said the Cuban officials were implicated in “attempts to silence the voices of the Cuban people through repression and unjust detentions.”   Cuban activists planned  a massive nationwide “Civic March for Change,”  rally for Monday November 15 to protest the “lack of freedom”  under socialist party rule. The rally fizzled as Cuban police and government supporters surrounded key activists’ homes, and detained many protestors.  Protest organizers called on  Cubans to take to the streets like tens of thousands did this past July to demand  changes in the government, but very few turned out. 

“In the days preceding November 15, the Cuban regime bullied activists with government-sponsored mobs, confined journalists and opposition members to their homes, revoked journalists’ credentials to suppress freedom of the press, and arbitrarily detained Cuban citizens who attempted to peacefully protest. The designated individuals today took action to deny Cubans their rights to free expression and peaceful assembly.  The rights to freedom of expression and peaceful assembly are universal.”

-U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken

U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken  (Credit:  Department of State)

The State Department implemented the targeted actions pursuant to Presidential Proclamation 5377, which suspends nonimmigrant entry into the United States of officers and employees of the Cuban government.

“The United States continues to use all our diplomatic and economic tools to push for the release of political prisoners and to support the Cuban people’s call for greater freedoms and accountability,”  Blinken added.