Cubans cry viva la social media revolución
The knock on the door came as Dina Stars was sitting in her Havana home giving a live television interview broadcast in Spain. The 25-year-old influencer – a new phenomenon in closed-off Cuba – was explaining how asphyxiating the regime can be in the wake of the first major street protests in a generation when police began gathering outside her home.
The blonde millennial, wearing red lipstick and a nose ring, disappeared from the view of her webcam for 90 seconds. She returned, her face white and out of breath, with the words: “I have to go. They are taking me.”
Leaning closer, she added: “I hold the government responsible for anything that may happen to me. They are forcing me to go with them.”
With that she was gone, marched into a police car to be carried to a network of prisons that have been rapidly filling up with anyone who dared join the unprecedented protests – whether in the streets of Havana or in Cuba’s fledgling online space.
The Cuban regime is in overdrive to stamp out the rare demonstrations, ostensibly linked to a severe economic downturn, a rise in Covid cases and major food and medicine shortages. Whether they can prevent a full-scale popular revolution is another question.
The protests were driven by an emerging class of dissident artists, poets, rappers and musicians who have been able to share their demands for freedom with the advent and spread of mobile internet over the last two years.
‘I know they could kill me. But I would happily die for this cause. Cuba is waking up to the injustices. Enough is enough’
‘When there is a common cause, all of us will be united. If we continue like this, no one will be able to stop us’
The movement, led from Havana but reaching to Miami and back, led to rare chants of “queremos libertad” (we want freedom) and “no tenemos miedo” (we are not afraid) ringing out across the island of 11 million, shocking the government – and the rest of the world.
Dozens of clips shared online before the regime shut the internet down show police kicking, beating and striking people with truncheons.
Others have been shot. “The streets have been militarised. Police and soldiers are going into houses with force and dragging people away,” one young activist, who did not want to be named, told The Sunday Telegraph.
For many, Dina Stars is an embodiment of the modern Cuban protest movement. There are not many “influencers” in Cuba given that the internet is regularly shut off and social media sites are blocked, despite the regime allowing the internet on phones since late 2018.
But Stars persisted, building a modest following of dedicated disciples, which she calls “Dinamites”.
While cooking demonstrations and playful drinking games are no threat to the regime, her posts have recently turned political and her audience has grown significantly.
Advocating for protests and posting footage online was a step too far.
On Wednesday, Stars was released from jail pending an investigation.
When she got home, she was ordered to leave her rented accommodation by a furious landlord. “I haven’t slept, but I’m not tired,” she says, nose ring still in, red lipstick reapplied.
“I don’t know if it’s sadness or hate. I don’t know how I feel with respect to what’s happening. It’s too much. This is not a good morning. Cuba is hurting.”
But she is determined to make a change. “When there is a common cause, all of us will be united. If we continue like this, no one will be able to stop us.”
For many Cubans, this moment has been a long time in the making. They have lived under communist rule for more than six decades and suffered under a US trade embargo. The average wage is around $30 (£22) a month.
Tighter Tighte sanctions imposed by Donald Trump, which w are still in place today, mean that tha people in the US can only send am a maximum of $4,000 a year to a relative in Cuba.
This Thi was before the pandemic caused caus the $3billion tourism industry indu to all but evaporate.
The T economy contracted by 11 per pe cent last year and the country cou currently has a higher coronavirus coro case rate than the UK.
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, head of the San Isidro Movement, told The Telegraph in April that with Raúl Castro, brother of Fidel, stepping down as head of the all-powerful Communist Party, there would be “a radical change” in Cuba.
His group is a collective of artists, a journalists, singers and academics, a formed in two years since sin the internet was rolled out across acro Cuba. At first they just advocated advo to be allowed to perform or publish without the need for prior state approval. Now they are demanding the end of communist rule and a transition to democracy.
Authorities say his group has been poisoned by critics of Cuba based in the US. Weaponising social media, the underground movement has become emboldened, increasingly venturing into the open and gaining a legion of young, engaged followers. Their work is shared on Instagram, their slogans are posted on Twitter and their arrests are live streamed on Facebook.
A song, Patria y Vida (Homeland and Life) – an antidote to Che Guevara’s famous “Patria o Muerte” (Homeland or Death) was composed by Cuban rappers and has been viewed more than six million times on YouTube, becoming an anthem for the repressed. Alcántara is now in jail. He was picked up almost immediately by security forces who are invariably stationed outside his home.
“I know they could kill me. Franco killed his opponents. I know they could do the same,” he said.
“But I would happily die for this cause. Cuba is waking up to the injustices. Enough is enough.”
Yunior Garcia Aguilera, a theatre director and free speech activist, was also detained for demanding a say on state television in a demonstration outside the regime Film, Radio and Television Institute. “We were beaten, forcibly dragged and thrown on to a cargo truck like garbage bags,” he said.
The Telegraph has seen pictures verifying his claims. Henry Constantín,
Iris Mariño and Neife Rigau – journalists at Hora de Cuba – were dragged off the streets by armed men and are still in custody. Yenney Caballero, an animal rights activist, was detained while walking her dogs and her whereabouts is unknown.
Conservative estimates put those arrested at 140, but The Telegraph understands the number could easily be double that, and continues to rise.
Miguel Díaz-Canel, Cuba’s president, yesterday denounced what he called a “lie” over the unrest, at a rally in Havana alongside 90-year-old Raul Castro, who has been brought out of retirement. He condemned the dissemination of “false images” on social networks where they “encourage and glorify the outrage and destruction of property”.