Yunior Garcia, Cuban dissident, arrives in Spain after failed demo

Cuban playwright, actor and dissident Yunior Garcia, one of the main organisers of the failed protest on the island nation earlier this week, arrived in Spain on a tourist visa on Wednesday 17 November. This solved the mystery of his whereabouts after some days out of sight. 

A government source told AFP, “We confirm that he has arrived with his wife on a tourist visa.”

The Cuban opposition group Archipelago, of which Garcia is the founder, had urged protesters to take to the streets of Havana dressed in white. The planned demonstration that was marked up to be on Monday was stopped as leaders of the opposition were arrested and security forces took charge of the streets to stop people from gathering in large numbers. 

Garcia was also planning a solo demonstration on Sunday but was again stopped by the authorities. Monday saw him confined to his house by state security agents. His Archipelago group then spoke on social media to say he and his wife had not been seen since early Tuesday and they considered them to be missing. 

After arriving in Spain, Garcia posted to his Facebook page and said: “We have arrived in Spain, alive, healthy and with our ideas intact. We have many people to thank. I have been without communication for several days and I need to update myself on the situation of other members of the Archipelago. Very soon we will discuss our odyssey.”

Archipelago had planned Monday’s protest after seeing the demonstrations that had broken out spontaneously in July. The rallies were unprecedented in a country where public dissent is rare and risky, and these protests ended in one person dead, dozens injured and 1,270 people arrested.

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