Cubans appropriate social networks to make it a tool for protest
Cubans check their cell phones by connecting to a hotspot in Havana, August 10, 2018. REUTERS / Tomas Bravo
Text by: Domitille Piron
5 mins
In Cuba, social networks are becoming a new political battleground.
Cubans have only had access to the internet on their cellphones since 2018 and the government probably did not expect this wave of criticism and the exposure in the eyes of the world of its authoritarian abuses.
On social networks, thousands of connected Cubans are now speaking out against the Revolution and the state seems totally overwhelmed by this virtual freedom of expression.
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From our correspondent in Havana,
“
We have no freedom and no right to think differently, the Cuban Communist Party decides everything,
”
Aguacate_cubano
commented
on Twitter, responding directly to a tweet from President Miguel Diaz-Canel.
Addressing a Cuban leader and criticizing government policies is now possible on this new political battlefield of social networks.
This person speaks behind an anonymous profile, but others speak with their faces uncovered, which is not without consequences.
Criticism of the state on social media
Doctor Alexander Pupo Casas soon graduated in neurosurgery.
But his career has taken a whole new turn since last September.
Frequently, he comments and posts on Facebook his opinion on the economic problems of the island and the lack of freedom.
And on September 24, he wrote: "
Until when will we have to support the laws that violate our Constitution and our human rights
".
A publication that earned him the loss of his home, his scholarship to finish his specialty in medicine and his post at the Holguín hospital.
Summoned by the Ministry of Health, Alexander Pupo Casas was strongly advised to stop his comments on the networks.
“
I understand people who hide their identity, I understand it and even more today because I really know how difficult it is to confront the state.
When I first started posting on social media, I knew I was going to expose myself to retaliation.
But I did not imagine them of this magnitude
”insists the doctor.
"
I expected someone to call me or try to convince me that what I'm writing is wrong, but I never could have imagined that I would be kicked out of my accommodation, that they slander me on social networks or that they try to arrest me like the State security and the Party did
”he underlines.
Alexander Pupo Casas is now considered a dissident and according to him, no turning back is now possible.
If no hospital on the island agrees to make him work as is currently the case, then he will think of exile.
This doctor has become a symbol of the emergence of this political opposition in Cuba, born on social networks.
"
I believe that social networks have become a weapon against the state available to the average Cuban who suffers daily outrages,
" he points out.
"
I believe that the state did not foresee this when they gave access to the Internet in Cuba
."
Freedom of expression on the web
After more than 60 years of Revolution and more than restricted freedom of expression, the
internet is therefore changing the situation in Cuba.
Like this doctor, more and more officials or journalists from the Party's media outlets, official state voices are rising up and criticizing the government on the web.
This is what Yoani Sanchez observes, who was one of the first to use social networks to express herself through her blog 14ymedio.
“
We are watching the way the specter of criticism shifts.
These people who until now did not speak out, did not criticize, did not denounce power, are starting to do so.
It's a symptom of the country's situation: dissent is going viral on the networks!
"
Faced with this freedom of expression found on social networks, the Cuban authorities are defending themselves and attempting counter-attacks by censorship and by hundreds of false profiles, which are called here the “ciberclaria”.
Jancel Moreno is Youtuber and activist.
He is accused of several offenses, including enemy propaganda and disrespect.
Regularly, he receives numerous comments and hate messages from these fake-profiles, which also threaten him to post intimate photos if he does not keep silent.
"
They have a virtual army to fight activists and discredit us,
" he denounces.
"
It's an army made for that, but my answer to that is what?"
The fear ?
No, go ahead, post the photos!
»He assures.
"
The fact that they publish my intimate photos or that they threaten to do so will not silence me, on the contrary, it will provoke a wave of solidarity and thus confirms the fact that I am on the right path!
"
On social networks, this new generation is convinced that it is contributing to change in Cuba, but it is still necessary to access the internet.
Because sometimes
the state-owned telecommunications company simply cuts off the network
and blocks access to certain applications.
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