The Cuban activist Mireya Jiménez, residing in Trinidad, Sancti Spíritus, published a video on Instagram alongside Ilsa Ramos last Wednesday to clarify any doubts about the scope of her complaints: her demands are not requests for water, food, or medication, but an explicit political call for freedom and the end of communism in Cuba.
"We are not making videos asking for water, food, or medicine; we are asking for freedom for Cuba, we are asking for freedom," Jiménez stated.
The clarification addresses interpretations that reduced their publications to mere requests for humanitarian aid, when the central message of both activists — grouped under the slogan "with Freedom we solve everything" — is of a political nature.
"We no longer want communism. They have us in misery, they have us in darkness. This is already an unsustainable situation. The dictatorship clings to power and those of us suffering are the everyday people," Ilsa said.
Jiménez closed the video insisting on his message: "Did you understand perfectly? We want freedom!"
Ilsa Ramos, an activist colleague of Jiménez, is the mother of a 15-year-old teenager with neuropsychiatric disorders, whose case both publicly reported in April 2026. The young man had no access to medical treatment during a blackout, while his mother had gone four days without sleep.
In that instance, Jiménez directly addressed Miguel Díaz-Canel: "Look, this is how my people are. No more talk about medical prowess. This is criminal."
The clarification from Ilsa and Mireya comes amid a wave of protests that shook Cuba during May and June of 2026, with pot-banging that escalated to tire burnings and street blockades in multiple neighborhoods of Havana and Santiago de Cuba.
The main trigger was the worsening of power outages, with cuts exceeding 20 hours a day. The slogans mixed demands for basic services with shouts of "Down with the dictatorship!" and "Homeland and Life!"
On social media, videos of protests have also been published, notably those featuring Mireya, calling for "Freedom for Cuba."
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