{"id":198731,"date":"2019-05-14T23:08:47","date_gmt":"2019-05-15T03:08:47","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/?p=198731"},"modified":"2019-05-14T23:08:47","modified_gmt":"2019-05-15T03:08:47","slug":"mariela-castro-considered-the-independent-lgbti-march-in-havana-humbug","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/oncubanews.com\/en\/cuba\/mariela-castro-considered-the-independent-lgbti-march-in-havana-humbug\/","title":{"rendered":"Mariela Castro considered the independent LGBTI march in Havana “humbug”"},"content":{"rendered":"

The director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX), Mariela Castro, daughter of former President Ra\u00fal Castro, on Monday said that an independent march of the LGTBI community held last Saturday in Havana was “humbug” and criticized the “lackeyism of mercenary activism.”<\/span><\/p>\n

“Free voices confront the lackeyism of mercenary activism and the ‘independent’ press. Unfortunately, many people joined the humbug, people who did not know what was happening and who as soon as they understood went to the Diversity Fiesta organized by CENESEX,” Castro wrote on Facebook.<\/span><\/p>\n

She also described as “enemies of freedom” and a “mass of ignorant and snobbish people who accompany them” those who participated in the independent march last Saturday and which <\/span>was interrupted by the police <\/span><\/a>and plainclothesmen with a total of four people subdued and arrested.<\/span><\/p>\n

Castro added that “the work of CENESEX makes these people lose sleep, but CENESEX, as a work and policy of the Revolution, will emerge stronger from the internal contradictions and external threats.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Check Post Here<\/a><\/p>\n

Since 2008 CENESEX has been organizing every year the Cuban Days against Homophobia and Transphobia and as part of its activities it includes a street “conga” that was suspended from the program taking place these days, which generated malaise in the LGBTI community and the convocation of an independent parade.<\/span><\/p>\n

CENESEX announced last week that the iconic gay pride parade was canceled in compliance with an order from that center’s governing body \u2015the Ministry of Public Health\u2015 due to “the current situation the country is experiencing” directed at worsening its economic crisis.<\/span><\/p>\n

But LGTBI activists, accompanied by members of civil society, called for a march \u2015despite official warnings that it was not authorized\u2015 in which between 200 and 300 people participated and which left from Havana’s Parque Central and paraded with no setbacks until they reached Malec\u00f3n avenue, where numerous police officers ordered it to dissolve.<\/span><\/p>\n

Watch Video Here<\/a><\/p>\n

The activists refused adducing that they did not need any permission to walk around Havana and that was when the arrests took place under the resistance of the detained persons and a part of the eyewitnesses.<\/span><\/p>\n

Watch Video Here<\/a><\/p>\n

The signs of violence were harshly criticized in the social networks by some artists, among them singer-songwriter Vicente Feli\u00fa, who described them as “absurd, shameful repression, dangerously evocative.”<\/span><\/p>\n

The founder of the New Song Movement, Silvio Rodr\u00edguez, also joined him and wrote in his blog: “I fully subscribe to everything Vicente said on his Facebook.”<\/span><\/p>\n

Artistas cubanos critican represi\u00f3n de marcha LGTBI en La Habana<\/a><\/p><\/blockquote>\n