A chaotic brawl on a ration line to buy chicken on Saturday resulted in Cuban state security officials brutalizing civilians and left a pregnant woman, who reportedly fainted on the scene, hospitalized.
Initial reports blamed Cuban police officials for beating the woman – a claim the Communist Party vocally rejected, publishing a video appearing to show plain-clothed individuals attacking her. Cuban police routinely wear plain clothes and the Communist Party often encourages pro-regime civilians to engage in violence against suspected dissidents. The pregnant woman in question, later identified as Ayamey González Váldes, does not have any known history of participating in acts of political dissent,
The incident occurred in Havana just two days after a protest erupted in the capital after a mother and her two daughters blocked traffic with their belongings to protest their recent eviction. That same night, a crowd estimated to have attracted hundreds of people convened in far-west Pinar del Río to protest long-lasting rolling blackouts, which have become a fixture on the island.
Police brutality has escalated significantly in the past year after Cuban civilians took the streets by the tens of thousands on July 11, 2021, to demand an end to communism. The protests, the largest since at least 2003, prompted the Castro regime to orchestrate door-to-door raids looking for suspected dissidents, violently plucking people out of their homes and, on occasion, beating and shooting them in their residences in front of their families. On the first day of the protest, puppet “president” Miguel Díaz-Canel issued what he described as an “order of combat” on television, urging communist sympathizers to brutally assault suspected protesters with anything they could turn into a weapon at home.
“They have to pass over our corpses if they want to confront the Revolution and we are willing to do everything and will be on the streets combatting,” Díaz-Canel said.
The incident involving González did not appear to begin as a political issue. Cubans are routinely forced to wait hours in extreme heat for basic foods like rice, bread, and chicken, often bringing home rancid, stale, or otherwise inedible products. The Communist Party controls the nation’s food supplies and requires citizens to use a ration notebook to obtain basic home needs. In January, the Castro regime announced that it did not have paper to print new ration notebooks and would use leftover notebooks marked “2021” for the foreseeable future.
On such a line in Managua, a neighborhood in the Arroyo Naranjo sector of Havana, a brawl erupted on Saturday. Reports from the island do not clarify how the dispute began or how González became involved, but reports from dissident groups on the island indicate that the participants stopped fighting each other and turned against the police after officers used excessive force against those believed to have started it. Local accounts claim at least one participant stole a police baton and began using it against the repressive agents.
The Argentine news site Infobae, citing local reports, reported that Castro regime agents used tear gas and brandished weapons at the civilians, who appeared unarmed before allegedly stealing police batons.
Videos of the melee showed fighting interrupted by uniformed police, who began brutally assaulting those involved. One young man in a yellow shirt appeared particularly victimized, shoved to the ground and beaten by offers after what appeared to be an attempt to protect the pregnant woman. Much of the conflict appears to be between uniformed police and civilians on the ration line though, as Cuban police often employ plain-clothes officers, there is no guarantee those without uniforms are not part of the Castro regime’s repressive apparatus.
Rumors began surfacing over the weekend that the woman, who at the time was yet to be identified, had lost her baby in the scuffle. Castro regime agents published a separate video of the incident that they claimed confirmed that González had fainted in the brawl and that regime supporters claimed exonerated police of violence against the pregnant woman. González is wearing a dark blue shirt in the video; a uniformed officer appears to carry her away after fainting. Multiple reports indicate that González fainted while attempting to prevent her sister, the woman in bright pink, from further engaging in fighting.
That video does not show officers shoving, punching, and kicking the young man, yet to be identified, in yellow, who some reports on social media claimed was trying to protect González given her visible pregnancy status.
Weather reports from Saturday indicate the day was sunny and temperatures in Havana reached a high of 87ºF, potentially high enough to cause fainting or heat stroke in a pregnant woman if exposed and exerting herself physically.
The Arroyo Naranjo municipal health authority identified González in a statement to social media on Monday and claimed that “she and her future baby are well, the specialists note that the monitor reflects good vitality in the fetus.” The statement also appeared to include a quote from González herself stating in first person, “I and my baby are well,” but the lack of quotation marks or any other indicator left unclear the intent of the statement.
The incident followed the videos surfacing last week out of Pinar del Río showing hundreds in the streets on Thursday night, chanting slogans like “down with communism!” and “we are hungry!”
That same night, a smaller protest erupted in Havana after locals reportedly came to the defense of a homeless mother after police attacked her for staging a one-person protest in the middle of a major street. The woman dumped her belongings in the street and blocked traffic, triggering an outsized police response; the incident ended in the early morning hours of Friday and prompted a mass deployment of repressive forces to contain any further protest the next day, according to locals.
Follow Frances Martel on Facebook and Twitter.