State Department Official Criticized for Depicting Cuba’s Anti-Communism Protest as a COVID-19 Demonstration

State Department Official Criticized for Depicting Cuba’s Anti-Communism Protest as a COVID-19 Demonstration
People protest in front of the Capitol in Havana, Cuba on July 11, 2021. Ramon Espinosa/AP Photo
Harry Lee
Updated:

A State Department official was criticized for describing Sunday’s anti-government protest in Cuba as an assembly against COVID-19 cases, deaths, and medicine shortages.

“Peaceful protests are growing in #Cuba as the Cuban people exercise their right to peaceful assembly to express concern about rising COVID cases/deaths & medicine shortages,” Julie Chung, the Acting Assistant Secretary in the Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs, wrote on Twitter Sunday.