A young Cuban identified as Eriel posted a video just over a minute long on Instagram that became a generational testimony: 26 years of life described as an unfair house arrest, without trial or clear charges, whose only crime was being born in Cuba.
"Since that moment, my life has become an invisible prison. My jailers have not only deprived me of freedom, but they have also decided every detail for me," Eriel asserts in the clip, with a clarity that encapsulates the experience of an entire generation.
The details he lists are not empty metaphors: they are the concrete architecture of life under the Cuban dictatorship.
"Since I could only have a glass of milk for breakfast until I was seven years old, to the number of hours of light and water I can have daily," says Eriel, directly referring to the rationing system in place since 1962 and to the energy crisis that currently paralyzes the island.
The "hours of light" mentioned by Eriel refer to a crisis that persists. As of April 14, 2026, the National Electric System reported a deficit of 1,158 megawatts. In December 2025, blackouts left 61% of the country without electricity, with outages lasting more than 24 hours in rural areas. The energy minister himself, Vicente de la O Levy, warned that 2026 would be a very difficult and tense year.
What stands out the most in Eriel's video is the absence of hope, not as a personal defeat but as a collective diagnosis.
"They have been long and distressing years, years in which I have been asked to endure. Yes, to endure so that they can continue to live comfortably, while I remain trapped without the ability to change my fate," he says.
That despair has measurable consequences. Between 2022 and 2024, over 500,000 Cubans left the island. The population fell below 11 million, and the country has been below replacement level since 2019. Those who remain and raise their voices face real repercussions.
The most recent and significant case is that of the El4tico audiovisual collective: the young Kamil Zayas Pérez and Ernesto Ricardo Medina, who were arrested on February 6 in Holguín for criticizing the government's management on social media, under charges of "propaganda against the constitutional order."
Eriel does not ask for revolution. His demand is more fundamental and, for that reason, more devastating.
"We do not only want physical freedom; we want the right to decide about our lives, to live with dignity, and to build our own destiny," concludes in the video.
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