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On the night of Wednesday to Thursday, ETECSA simultaneously disabled the phone lines of Christian activist Anna Sofía Benítez Silvente —known as Anna Bensi— and her mother, as well as those of evangelical pastor David Espinosa and his wife Laidy García, in a new episode of coordinated digital repression against young opponents in Cuba.
The outage occurred between 10:20 and 10:23 PM on Wednesday. Hours later, at 2:00 AM, Anna Bensi's WhatsApp account was deactivated for the second time that night, just hours after having recovered it at five in the afternoon.
"I am connected via hotspot. This also needs to be said", wrote David Espinosa on his social media, reporting the service outage that affected his family in the middle of the night.
It is not the first time that Cuban authorities have resorted to such measures against these activists. Anna Bensi is under house arrest with a prohibition on leaving the country, a situation that has lasted for weeks and has not prevented the authorities from continuing to exert pressure on her and her surroundings.
In that context of systematic harassment, Pastor David Espinosa has also been summoned for the fifth time by MININT, in what those affected describe as a campaign of intimidation and manipulation against young believers who dare to express their dissent.
Efforts at cooptation have also been documented. On one occasion, regime agents told Anna Bensi: "This dream can come true, Sofía. We can help you", in an attempt to recruit her, which she publicly denounced.
The international community has paid attention to the case. According to those who support her, her only crime has been defending her beliefs, her faith, something that the Cuban regime seems willing to punish by all means at its disposal, including control of communications.
As has been proven on multiple occasions, ETECSA is the employee of the month when it comes to silencing critical voices, acting as the enforcer of a repression that combines surveillance, service interruptions, and psychological pressure against those who oppose the government.
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