14ymedio, Havana, 24 December 2020 — It took several days to identify him and only his first name is known.
When he appeared before the public for the first time, in a video broadcast on social networks on November 22, it was an individual in a red T-shirt with a homemade white cloth mask who was haranguing some twenty people to get them to shout slogans against anyone who dared to approach Havana’s Central Park, where a spontaneous demonstration had been called in solidarity with the members of the San Isidro Movement (MSI) who were, at that time, on hunger strike and locked up in their headquarters on Damas Street 955, in Old Havana.
“Viva Fidel,” “let the scum go [i.e., leave the country],” “let them go,” were the slogans from the jeering crowd, especially against the journalist Maylin Alonso, a correspondent for the Agence France Presse, whom this individual harassed to the point of almost hitting her, as well as her cameraman, Yamil Lage.
The “man in the red shirt,” we later learned, is called Reinerio and is an official of the Communist Party in Old Havana. According to Cuballama, he is in charge of staffing “the public health office.”
As a result of the demonstrations generated by the MSI, including the protest of hundreds of artists in front of the Ministry of Culture on November 27, acts of repudiation have again proliferated. Both the San Isidro headquarters and some of the artists who were at the meeting with Vice Minister Fernando Rojas have not yet recovered from the harassment by State Security.
See more 14ymedio’s series Faces of 2020
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