The bishop for the Diocese of St. Augustine asks for support for the people of Cuba after Cuban officials quashed a planned demonstration to protest poor living conditions in the country.

"Let us not forget the people of Cuba in their right to live in greater freedom and without violence," Bishop Felipe J. Estévez wrote in a Nov. 15 Twitter post. 

The “Civic March for Change," planned for Nov. 15, was put down before it started, the New York Times reports. Protest organizers had hoped to continue the momentum from protests this past summer against the repressive Communist government, food shortages, a struggling health care system and for more liberty. 

However, police and other security agents, as well as government supporters, spread across the country and stationed themselves outside of dissidents’ homes in a show of force and intimidation in order to stop the protest. 

Although protests are technically allowed in Cuba, the government arrested 11 citizens and “besieged” 50 others inside their homes rather than allowing Monday’s protest to proceed, CNN News reports. 

"At 5:30 in the morning people called by the Cuban government arrived in my neighborhood. I know they were called by the Cuban government because of the signs they were carrying," Cuban activist Saily Gonzalez Velazquez told CNN. "They played music and when I got out of my house, they started yelling at me and my family."

The U.S. has threatened more sanctions against Cuba if the protesters are arrested by police, CNN reports.

Around 100 people took to the streets of Naples, Florida in a show of solidarity with Cubans and to raise awareness for the situation, according to Wink News. Some of the demonstrators have family in Cuba and called for their basic human rights. Wink News noted that the Cuban government cut off its citizens’ internet access through Nov. 17.