Havana
There is an astonishing patience in the Cuban people, born of endless waiting. When a store has, say, chicken, people queue, often for days. But on Monday, outside the Zanja police station in central Havana, people weren’t waiting for food. They were waiting patiently for news of family members who had been arrested during unprecedented protests at the weekend.
The demonstrations flared like a petrol fire. Cubans had settled down for lunch, many preparing to watch the Euro 2020 final, when news spread of a march in the town of San Antonio de los Baños on the outskirts of Havana. Videos on social media showed people, driven to fury by daily, hours-long power cuts, chanting ‘libertad’ freedom or else ‘Patria y Vida’ fatherland and life (a play on the bellicose revolutionary slogan
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Every Friday night for the past five weeks, hundreds of young Cubans have stayed up into the early morning to start their weekend off with a taste of something illicit: uncensored information.
They are slipping past one of the world’s strictest censorship regimes to tune into “This Week in Cuba,” a Twitter-based live audio chatroom where prominent activists and social media influencers lead an open discussion of Cuban politics and current events.
While the Cuban government does not forbid Twitter use on the island, Cubans who use the platform to tweet against the regime risk harassment, intimidation, and arrest. Yet the intimate and ephemeral nature of the live audio discussions is encouraging Cubans to speak up about the problems plaguing their country or simply to listen to their peers.