More than 9,000 people have signed a Change.org petition demanding the removal of Cuba's Minister of Culture, Alpidio Alonso, after video footage of him physically confronting protesters emerged.
Alonso was filmed confronting a peaceful demonstration at the gates of the Ministry of Culture that called for the release of the artist Tania Bruguera, who had been detained that morning.
Cuban activist group 27N submitted a legal request for the minister's removal to the National Assembly of People’s Power a week after the incident.
The petition states: “The minister must assume responsibility for the violence carried out on January 27 at the gates of the ministry, otherwise the Cuban government led by [President] Miguel Mario Díaz-Canel Bermúdez and [Prime Minister] Manuel Marrero Cruz would be accomplices of an act of institutionalized violence and illegality.”
Bruguera said the petition was unprecedented in Cuba.
“Every week, we are going to present this demand at the National Assembly, with the new names printed on it.”