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Staff Photo by Dan Henry / The Chattanooga Times Free Press- 3/21/16. Daniel Alcala, owner of Embargo 62, spends time in his restaurant on Monday, March 21, 2016. It was business as usual hours before President Barack Obama arrived Sunday for the first visit to Cuba by a sitting United States chief executive since 1928.
Nonviolent, anti-communist government protesters in the island nation, many of them having attended Mass before taking to the streets, were rounded up and taken into custody. The weekly Ladies in White protesters, representing the men and women who for decades were imprisoned for seeking basic human rights, usually are held for several hours and then released.
But the lack of freedom of speech, press, assembly and protest point up the lack of meaningful change in the totalitarian nation since Obama sought to improve U.S. ties there more than a year ago.
Improved relations with Cuba, as we have previously said, could help both nations but only if the communist nation reforms its economic and political systems and makes advances in human rights.