|Hong Kong and Havana|
In December 2007 Beijing says it will allow the people of Hong Kong to directly elect their own leader in 2017 and their legislators by 2020.
In January 2013 Occupy Central with Love and Peace campaign is initiated by law professor Benny Tai.
In July 2014 hundreds of thousands of pro-democracy protesters march through Hong Kong, calling for a genuinely democratic vote in 2017. Police arrest over 500 protesters who stage an overnight sit-in in the main business district.
In August 2014 tens of thousands of pro-Beijing supporters stage a massive counter-protest against the Occupy Central civil disobedience campaign.
At the same time repression rises against democrats and in August 2014 anti-corruption officers raid home of Jimmy Lai, a media magnate and outspoken critic of Beijing who has supported pro-democracy activists through his publications and with donations.
On August 31, 2014 the Standing Committee of China's National People's Congress rules out a fully democratic election for Hong Kong leader in 2017, by imposing tight rules on nominations of candidates who want to run in the poll that effectively places the nomination of candidates in the hands of the Beijing communist regime. It is this decision that sparks the protests that become known as the Umbrella Movement.
Meanwhile, the nonviolent Cuban pro-democracy movement was forged in a baptism by fire in the 1970s inside of Cuba's prisons initially as a human rights movement. The first nonviolent dissident movement in Cuba was the Cuban Committee for Human Rights. During the 1980s the movement emerged from the prisons and was primarily based in Havana but during the course of the 1990s spread across the country. Its greatest initial success was to document and expose the systematic violation of human rights in Cuba that led to the dictatorship's condemnation at the United Nations Human Rights Commission for over a decade. In the 2000s the opposition achieved another important milestone with the Varela Project, an initiative of the Christian Liberation Movement, that obtained more that 25,000 signatures demanding profound reforms to bring Cuba into line with international human rights standards. Crackdowns and political killings targeting democratic opposition leaders followed but the movement has proven resilient. Nevertheless, the democracy movement in Cuba, until now, has been unable to mobilize hundreds of thousands of people in Cuba. However, they do have a national reach and are able to coordinate small protests.
Havana and Hong Kong have completely different histories but do have one thing in common both are cities composed of human beings. Being humans they have certain needs, among them freedom and dignity. The demonstrations in Hong Kong were not an accident and the organizers have a strategic and long term vision with specific and concrete demands.
In the meantime there are two things that you, the reader, can do: 1) Demonstrate your solidarity with the Umbrella Movement in Hong Kong signing this petition and 2) Demonstrate your solidarity with the democracy movement in Cuba signing this petition.