Andrés Carrión describes his anti-Castro shouts during papal visit in Cuba

Andrés Carrión, the man who shouted “Freedom!” “Down with communism!” and other anti-Castro slogans on March 26, shortly before the papal Mass on Antonio Maceo Square in Santiago de Cuba, remembers that moment as if it had been the end of his life. His throat was dry. He panted. He thought about his family.

“I was worried because I thought that, at the moment of truth, my voice would fail and my shouts wouldn’t come out,” Carrión recalled in a telephone interview with El Nuevo Herald. “But they did, and I know that they caused the dictatorship much harm.”

The incident occurred in an area near the platform where TV cameramen and photographers stood. It was broadcast widely, throughout the world. As he was removed violently from the square, Carrión was struck by several government sympathizers. One member of the Cuban Red Cross beat him savagely on the face and struck him on the head with a folded stretcher.

“If I had an opportunity to find the stretcher bearer, I’d try to explain to him that his intransigence only benefits the government,” Carrión said. “The same government that keeps him working hard and selling bleach on the streets.”

Carrión thought that he wouldn’t leave the square alive. [More]

SOURCE

Miami Herald