Ten Panamanian citizens have been detained in Cuba for painting critical graffiti against the government and the political system of the island in Havana, reported the Ministry of the Interior (Minint) on Monday in a statement distributed to official media. Minint assured that the detainees are accused of a presumed crime of propaganda against the constitutional order, for which the Cuban Penal Code provides for prison sentences of up to 8 years. The graffiti contained phrases such as 'Down with tyranny', 'Communism: enemy of the community' and 'We trust Donald Trump, Marco Rubio and Mike Hammer', referring respectively to the president of the United States, his secretary of State, and his ambassador to the island. All the graffiti were dated with the day they were carried out, February 28, and had the initials CDPC and Cuba at the bottom, after Washington blocked the entry of oil to the island and pressured Havana to begin a negotiation. Last week, the Cuban Border Guard Troop entered into a shootout with a speedboat from the United States in which ten people (Cuban nationals residing in Florida) were carrying a large amount of weapons, ammunition, and military equipment. The incident occurred in Cuban territorial waters, according to Minint, which stated that it was the boat's crew who opened fire when the official vessel approached them to identify them. In the incident, four crew members of the speedboat were killed and the other six were injured, as well as a Cuban border guard. The independent NGO 'Cuban Prison Documentation Center' (CDPC) denied any relationship with this action. According to Minint, the detainees confessed that they were recruited in Panama, where all of them reside, 'to make signs with subversive content, contrary to the constitutional order'. The detainees were going to be paid between $1,000 and $1,500 each for this operation upon returning to Panama, the statement added. The detentions took place at a time of great tension between the USA and Cuba.
