14ymedio, Havana, 4 September 2020 — On the first two days of September along, with the implementation of the new measures in Havana to contain the Covid-19 pandemic, the authorities imposed 1,100 fines for not wearing a mask, being outside without authorization, or ingesting alcoholic beverages on the public rights-of-way.
The official press highlighted that on the 1st, 1,108 fines were imposed for not wearing or incorrectly wearing a facemask; 11 on drivers of state vehicles who traveled without authorization; 17 to people who consumed alcohol in public places; and 19, for “staying” in unauthorized spaces.
The following day, the infractions for the incorrect use of the mask reached 325, and another 11 vehicles were immobilized for circulating without authorization.
he amounts of these fines, as stated in Decree 14/2020, range between 2,000 and 3,000 pesos, in a country where the basic salary is 400 pesos per month.
However, despite the toughening of the rules and the increase in fines, the streets are still full during the day, as this newspaper has observed, and the people of Havana continue to come out to join the incessant lines outside of stores, banks, etc.
“It had been announced that they were going to control the number of people in the streets and that the elderly could not go out,” a neighbor of the Carlos III shopping mall told 14ymedio. “I assure you that I have seen many old people on the street, starting with the usual beggars.”
The same woman tells that the red berets (special forces) begin to appear in the afternoons, before the curfew, which was set at 7 pm. “During the day there are many youngsters from the Minint [Ministry of the Interior], perhaps students, skinny and malnourished, and I don’t know who could limit them,” she ironically.
In a report published on September 2, the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights denounced that the Government is taking advantage of the health crisis derived from Covid-19 “to increase the control mechanisms over the population, through disproportionate fines and persecution of certain economic activities.”
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