Cuban dissident to continue campaign, won't apply for Spanish asylum

Cuban dissident Yunior Garcia Aguilera, who left for Spain amid growing pressure on his protest movement, said on Thursday he wants to continue his fight against the leadership in Havana in his home country.

For this reason, he is not seeking asylum in Spain, the playwright told reporters in Madrid.

"I intend to return to Cuba, but I don't want to be angry in the process. I must first rid myself of this anger to continue being pluralistic and tolerant," Garcia Aguilera said.

He wants to "resume the fight when my life and my wife's life in Cuba are no longer in danger."

Garcia Aguilera landed in Madrid on Wednesday. The activist entered the country on a tourist visa with his wife, Dayana Prieto, the Spanish government announced on Thursday.

Commenting on how he left Cuba, the government critic said those in power probably let him get on the plane in the hopes of getting rid of him.

"If I had been sentenced, I would have become a symbol. And also if they had killed me," he said.

Protests

On July 11, Cuba's largest mass protests in decades spontaneously erupted, calling for greater freedoms and denouncing mismanagement. There were hundreds of arrests.

Shortly before further protests planned against the socialist government, Garcia Aguilera was virtually forced into house arrest on Sunday, according to opposition sources.

Plainclothes police officers prevented him from marching alone with a white rose through the capital Havana, according to a statement by the alliance Plataforma Archipielago.

Photos showed his window was covered with a Cuban flag.