Havana’s Central Park Preacher is Left Without an Audience

Strolling up and down Central Park with a Bible in hand, the young man railed against the Family Code. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez, Havana, 10 February 2022 — A man preached loudly this Wednesday in Havana’s Central Park. Strolling up and down not only through the square but also on San Rafael Boulevard, with a Bible in his hand and tattoos on his skin, he ranted against the Family Code, which the Cuban government has put to “popular debate” before putting it to a referendum.

“The only family code there should be is the Bible,” he yelled carelessly. The central place is heavily guarded by uniformed and civilian agents, something that contrasted with the apparent impunity with which the individual shouted his rejection of the legislation that has not yet entered into force.

After a while, the preacher went on his way, without having managed a single sentence of support or rejection.

In that same pedestrian zone, which connects Centro Habana with Old Havana, Luis Robles Elizastigui, the “young man with the placard,” was arrested in December 2020 for carrying, in silence, a sign that said “freedom” and asked for “no more repression.”

This time, the police have ignored the impromptu prophet, an attitude similar to that adopted by passers-by, engrossed in the lines Cubans must wait in for everything, or hurrying to get to a store that had something to sell.

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