| Night of the Three Ps | |
|---|---|
| Part of the Aftermath of the Cuban Revolution | |
| Location | Havana, Cuba |
| Date | October 11, 1961 |
| Target | Official Prostitutes, pimps, "pájaros" Unofficial Artists, intellectuals, vagrants, voodoo practitioners |
Attack type | Social cleansing razzias |
| Victims | Thousands |
| Perpetrators | "Social Scum Squad" |
| Motive | Enforcement of revolutionary morality |
The Night of the Three Ps (Spanish: La Noche de las Tres Pes) was a massive police raid on October 11, 1961 in Havana targeting prostitutes, pimps, and "pájaros" (a term coined in Cuba to refer to homosexuals).[1] Cuban poet Virgilio Piñera was arrested the morning after the raid but quickly released to avoid international scandal. The raid was the first moralist round up of the new Castro government and would be the beginning of various round-ups in Cuba of people considered undesirables. The raid took place at a time of heightened moral campaigns in Cuba demonizing homosexuality and other qualities considered uncompatible with the Cuban revolutionary "new man".[2][3] The raid of the Night of the Three Ps officially targeted prostitutes (Spanish: prostitutas), "pájaros", and pimps (Spanish: proxenetas). Scholars and observers have noted that the police raid making the Night of the Three Ps could be better understood as having taken place for longer than that one night. Carlos Franqui noted in his memoir that the real targets of the raid included homosexuals, intellectuals, artists, vagrants, voodoo practitioners, and anyone deemed suspicious.[4]
- ^ Zayas, Manuel (20 January 2006). "Mapa de la homofobia". CubaInformación (in Spanish). Madrid. Retrieved 7 June 2022.
- ^ The Whole Island Six Decades of Cuban Poetry. University of California Press. 2009. p. 566. ISBN 9780520258945.
- ^ Anderson, Thomas (2006). Everything in Its Place The Life and Works of Virgilio Piñera. Bucknell University Press. p. 105. ISBN 9780838756355.
- ^ Hynson, Rachel (2020). Laboring for the State Women, Family, and Work in Revolutionary Cuba, 1959-1971. Cambridge University Press. pp. 201–202. ISBN 9781107188679.