Cubans march for pets’ rights

HUNDREDS of people have marched peacefully through Havana calling for an end to animal cruelty, in what organisers believe was the first independent march authorised by the one-party state.

Accompanied by their pets, the activists (pictured) carried placards calling for an animal protection law and chanted “down with animal abuse”.

That the Communist Government authorised people to stage the march could point to an expanding tolerance for Cubans to express their views.

Authorities still crack down on opposition attempts to hold demonstrations and detain dissidents, whom they accuse of being subversives in the pay of the US.

“This could be the new Cuba,” organiser Beatriz Batista, a 21-year-old communications student who received a permit for the march from the municipal authority, said.

Previous marches have been largely restricted to those organised by the Government to celebrate Cuba’s 1959 leftist revolution or to criticise the US.