(Bloomberg) -- Cuban President Miguel Diaz-Canel warned citizens there would be consequences for taking to the streets as many on the island were still without power after more than 72 hours.
Diaz-Canel, in a statement published Monday after sporadic protests broke out over the weekend, said the government “will not tolerate this type of conduct” and that demonstrators “will be processed rigorously under our revolutionary law.”
Anti-government protests are illegal on the island, and human rights groups say there are currently more than 1,100 political prisoners in Cuban jails. Many of those detainees were scooped up after massive demonstrations in July 2021 sparked by power outages and hunger.
Cuba is grappling with its worst economic crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union and has lost 10% of its population since 2021. Its latest troubles began Friday when a power plant failure led to an island-wide blackout. Since then, the entire system has collapsed at least three times as officials have struggled to get the lights back on.
Diaz-Canel, who was photographed wearing civilian clothes while meeting with energy officials on Friday and Saturday, had switched into military fatigues by the Sunday cabinet meeting at which the statement was made. The president suggested most of the participants in the one protest he acknowledged were intoxicated and being egged on by “counter-revolutionaries from abroad.”
On Monday, state-run media said power had been restored for about 56% of residents in Havana, even as many rural areas continue to be in the dark. Eastern Cuba, meanwhile, was being drenched by heavy rains from Oscar, which hit the island Sunday as a Category 1 hurricane before being downgraded to a tropical storm and turning northeast toward the Bahamas.
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