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There are anniversaries that compel us to look back. The one on July 11 especially compels us to look around.
Five years after thousands of Cubans took to the streets to demand freedom, food, medicine, and political change, the pots are once again clanging in Havana.
The Cuban Observatory of Conflicts recorded 107 street protests during June, 82 of which were in the capital. In Centro Habana, a slogan was heard that encapsulates the depth of the discontent: “We want freedom, not current.” Electricity could return; the protest did not end with it.
It does not necessarily mean that Cuba is already experiencing another 11J. It signifies something perhaps more unsettling for those in power: the causes of that explosion remain intact, and the memory of what happened is still vivid.
There are longer power outages, more expensive and scarce food, deteriorating hospitals, and a society that already knows that fear can be broken. But it also knows what the cost of breaking it was.
According to the latest report published by Justicia 11J, in April 2026, there were 775 people deprived of their liberty for political reasons in Cuba. Of these, 338 had been sanctioned for participating in the protests of July 2021.
July 11 is, therefore, not a commemorative date. He remains imprisoned in Cuban jails.
An order that resulted in deaths and injuries
On July 11, 2021, the appointed leader Miguel Díaz-Canel appeared before the cameras of state television and uttered the phrase that would define the Government's response: “The order to combat has been given, revolutionaries to the streets.”
It was not an unfortunate expression uttered in the heat of the moment. It was the head of state publicly rallying his supporters and the power structures to confront other Cubans.
After that intervention, police, special troops, military personnel, plainclothes agents, and pro-government brigades flooded the streets. There were beatings, gunfire, violent arrests, and raids. The sequence of events turned the phrase into a political authorization for repression.
In La Güinera, one of the poorest neighborhoods in Havana, that order had a name: Diubis Laurencio Tejeda.
He was 36 years old and was participating in the protests of July 12 when he was shot in the back by sub-lieutenant of the National Revolutionary Police Yoennis Pelegrín Hernández.
The projectile pierced one lung and reached the heart. He was the only fatality officially acknowledged by the Cuban authorities as a result of those days.
The Prosecutor's Office concluded that the officer had acted in "self-defense" and did not file charges. However, the officer's own testimony did not describe that Diubis had attacked him or that his life had been directly threatened.
The officer stated that he fired his Makarov pistol at the demonstration after other police officers were pelted with stones and he heard provocations and threats. The legitimate defense applied by the Prosecutor's Office ultimately served as a license for impunity.
Diubis was not the only person affected by gunfire in La Güinera. The report on the wave of repression also included Yorlandis Pérez Sánchez and Rubén Pérez Aldana, as well as Yoel Misael Fuentes García, who was 16 years old and was injured in a leg. The family of the teenager reported that the Police interrogated and pressured him during his hospitalization.
In Cárdenas, Matanzas, repression has resulted in at least two more documented cases. José Carlos Hernández Barrio, 21 years old, was shot during the state's actions against the protesters.
Two days after the outbreak, the Black Berets tracked down Daniel Joel Cárdenas Díaz at his home, burst in firing, and arrested him in front of his wife and children. His relatives reported that he had an eight-centimeter wound on his head and several bruises.
The state's response to Daniel Joel was not to investigate why armed agents fired at a man inside his home. It was to prosecute him. A military court sentenced him to 15 years of imprisonment. José Carlos Hernández Barrio received a sentence of 14 years.
The "combat order" did not end when the streets emptied. It entered homes, hospitals, police stations, and ultimately, the courts.
From the national raid to political imprisonment
Justicia 11J documented 1,586 people detained for the protests on July 11 and 12, 2021.
The figure does not mean that all were sentenced to prison, but it allows for the scale of a nationwide crackdown to be understood. Hundreds were subjected to criminal proceedings, many in collective trials, and received sentences that in some cases exceeded twenty years.
The regime used crimes such as sedition, public disorder, contempt, assault, and sabotage to turn a political protest into a collection of criminal cases. The official narrative reduced citizens, who appeared unarmed in numerous videos shouting "Freedom" and "Homeland and Life," to "vandals" or "criminals."
Repression did not end with the sentences. Justicia 11J has documented in prisons beatings, physical and psychological torture, punishment cells, arbitrary transfers, temporary disappearances within the prison system, and denial of medical and religious care. Additionally, overcrowding, lack of hygiene, poor nutrition, and scarcity of water and basic supplies contribute to the situation.
Leaving prison has not necessarily meant regaining freedom. In March 2026, at least 21 individuals convicted for the 11J protests were released, but they remained under active sentences, state surveillance, and restrictive conditions. Some reported being prohibited from posting on social media. Others were summoned for demanding the release of colleagues who remained incarcerated.
The case of Denis Hernández Ramírez reveals how this mechanism functions. He had been released from prison, but returned after publishing reports about the surveillance and harassment by State Security. He became the seventh protester from the 11J who was sent back to a cell following a conditional release that began in January 2025.
The message is clear: you can leave the penitentiary, but the prison comes with you.
That's why it is misleading to simply speak of "liberations." A conditional exit, with the sentence unchanged, travel bans, threats, and the possibility of re-incarceration does not amount to complete freedom. It is an outside version of the same punishment.
Imprisonment or exile
When the prison fails to subdue an opposition figure, the regime offers another way out: leaving the country.
José Daniel Ferrer, leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba, was detained while trying to join the protests on July 11, ultimately accepted exile in 2025 after years of imprisonment, isolation, and pressure against his family.
From prison, he explained that he made the decision under extreme conditions and to protect his wife and children. It was not an ordinary emigration or a free choice among life projects. It was the choice between remaining in the hands of his captors or leaving his country.
The exile has also affected artists, journalists, and activists who emerged before, during, and after 11J. In this way, the State seeks to empty the civic space: some are left behind bars; others are pushed out of the island; those who remain receive a constant reminder of what could happen to them.
The prison temporarily removes a voice from the public space. Exile seeks to eliminate it from the national territory.
But families, former prisoners, and human rights organizations have prevented that operation from being completed. Justicia 11J, Cubalex, and other platforms have provided names, dates, and records where the State intended to leave only numbers and criminal charges.
In January 2026, more than 1,600 activists, human rights defenders, and political prisoners signed a call to demand the immediate release of political prisoners.
The Forum Action for Amnesty has gone a step further by proposing that the release should include the expungement of records and the restoration of civil and political rights. This clarification is essential. It is not enough to open the prison doors if each protester retains a conviction that could be reactivated.
Freedom must mean freedom: without surveillance, without exile, without mandatory silence, and without a judicial sword hanging over one's head.
From the Black Berets to Díaz-Canel: The Escalation of Sanctions
The first punitive reaction from Washington after 11J did not begin with Donald Trump, but with the administration of Joe Biden.
On July 22, 2021, eleven days after the protests, the Office of Foreign Assets Control sanctioned under the Global Magnitsky program the Minister of Armed Forces, Álvaro López Miera, and the National Special Brigade of the Ministry of the Interior (MININT), known as the Black Berets.
The designations blocked assets that could be under U.S. jurisdiction and generally prohibited transactions between U.S. individuals and entities and those sanctioned. Biden then announced that this was "just the beginning."
On July 30, a second round of sanctions was imposed against the National Revolutionary Police, its director Óscar Alejandro Callejas Valcárcel and its deputy director Eddy Manuel Sierra Arias. Washington attributed a direct role to the PNR in the repression, detentions, and abuses committed against peaceful protesters.
In August, the Prevention Troops of the FAR, known as the Red Berets, and five high-ranking officials from MININT and the Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) were sanctioned. The fourth round, announced on August 19, included Roberto Legrá Sotolongo, Andrés Laureano González Brito, and Abelardo Jiménez González, the latter linked to the prison system.
The measures were expanded in 2022 from financial to immigration matters. The State Department restricted visas for eight officials in January, five more in June, and another 28 in July.
Among those affected were officials responsible for trials, sentences, and incarcerations, as well as members of the Communist Party and the media and technology apparatus involved in censorship and internet restrictions.
On the fourth anniversary of 11J, now under the new Trump administration, Secretary of State Marco Rubio announced entry restrictions against Díaz-Canel, López Miera, Interior Minister Lázaro Álvarez Casas, and their immediate family members.
Measures were also adopted against judicial and prison officials associated with the detention and mistreatment of demonstrators. These were primarily immigration restrictions, not yet equivalent to a financial designation on the list of blocked individuals.
The financial leap came in 2026. On May 7, Washington sanctioned GAESA and Moa Nickel. On May 18, it added nine senior officials and the Directorate of Intelligence, known as DGI or G2.
On June 4, Díaz-Canel was directly added to the list of blocked individuals, along with Lis Cuesta, Manuel Anido Cuesta, Alejandro Castro Espín, and Raúl Alejandro Castro Calis, as well as the MINFAR, the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution, and other entities. This was the first direct designation of Díaz-Canel and his wife on the OFAC financial list.
Sanctions do not bring Diubis back to life, do not heal Daniel Joel's wounds, and do not restore freedom to the prisoners on their own. But they establish something that the Cuban justice system has refused to acknowledge: individual accountability and an institutional chain.
Its effectiveness should not be measured by the number of statements issued or the length of the lists, but by verifiable results: prisoners released unconditionally, an end to harassment of families, the ability to remain in or return to Cuba, and the recovery of rights.
The ultimatum that was due in April
The issue of prisoners entered directly into the conversations between Washington and Havana during the spring of 2026.
According to a report from USA Today, a U.S. delegation issued a confidential ultimatum during a meeting held in Havana on April 10: the regime would have two weeks to release high-profile political prisoners, including Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Osorbo, as a gesture of good faith. That deadline would have expired around April 24.
Havana confirmed that the meeting took place, but denied that the United States had set deadlines, conditions, or threatening proposals.
The demand to release them, however, has been public and reiterated. Marco Rubio has placed it among the priorities of U.S. policy toward Cuba.
Mike Hammer, mission chief of the United States Embassy in Havana, visited San Antonio de los Baños, met with family members and opponents, and conveyed to Denis Hernández's mother that Trump and Rubio were insisting on the release of all political prisoners. The Embassy stated that it would continue to demand this publicly.
That pressure is necessary, but it carries a risk: that the prisoners may end up becoming pawns in a negotiation between two governments.
Political prisoners do not belong to Washington or Havana. They are not a commercial concession, a diplomatic gesture, or a bargaining chip for oil, investments, or relief from sanctions. They are Cuban citizens imprisoned for exercising rights that the State denies them.
Their release must be the starting point of any conversation, not the final reward of an agreement among elites.
The Crab: Power without mandate
Amidst that pressure and the contacts between Washington and Havana, a figure has emerged who encapsulates better than many speeches the nature of the Cuban system: Raúl Guillermo Rodríguez Castro, also known as 'El Cangrejo'.
He is the grandson of Raúl Castro, a colonel in MININT, and for years he was associated with his grandfather's personal security. He does not hold an official position in the Government, he has not been elected by the Cubans and does not possess any representative mandate.
However, he now appears as the main informal interlocutor of the regime with the United States and offers to negotiate directly with Donald Trump the future of the island.
The paradox begins with its own presentation. “I have never been interested in politics,” he admitted in his first interview with a U.S. media outlet. He then stated that, if the revolution needed him, he would take the step.
In a democracy, a lack of political ambition and electoral support would distance a person from national decisions. In a dynastic system, the opposite can occur: kinship replaces the vote, and proximity to the center of power makes any public office unnecessary.
His authority does not stem from a transparent institution or from a responsibility subject to public scrutiny. It comes from his surname, from his lineage within the military and repressive establishment, and from his privileged access to those who have governed Cuba for over six decades.
The location from which he granted the interview also matters: the former office of Raúl Castro. It was not an innocuous scenic detail, but an image of continuity. The grandson spoke from the space of the grandfather and presented himself as someone capable of intervening in matters ranging from fuel supply to the release of political prisoners.
About these last ones, it was stated that Cuba could release them "under the right conditions". However, it was added that "the truth is not absolute," a phrase that immediately puts in perspective the apparent offer and allows the regime to continue denying the political nature of the sentences.
The formulation is revealing. The prisoners do not appear as citizens whose rights have been violated, but rather as individuals that those in power might hand over if they receive something in return. Freedom ceases to be a right and becomes a bargaining chip.
The most recent precedent advises caution. The Government announced in April a pardon for 2,010 individuals, but the audits referenced by Justicia 11J and Prisoners Defenders concluded that it did not include significant political prisoners and that it maintained the pattern of selective, conditional, and reversible releases.
That mechanism allows the regime to announce humanitarian gestures without acknowledging the arbitrariness of the detentions, to annul sentences, or to fully restore the rights of those sanctioned. It also maintains the threat over the released individuals of returning to prison if they speak out, protest, or report harassment.
The personal profile of El Cangrejo exacerbates the contrast. While he claims that it pains him that many Cubans cannot live like he does, he wears brands like Hugo Boss and Hermès and, according to published information, made at least 23 private jet trips to Panama between 2024 and late 2025 for luxury shopping.
During that same period, millions of Cubans were experiencing power outages, food shortages, deteriorating hospital conditions, and up to 25-hour periods without electricity in extensive areas of the country. His statement about popular suffering doesn't just sound like hollow empathy; it is also an involuntary confession of the distance that separates the ruling elite from the society they govern.
The boy from San Antonio de los Baños who went out to shout "Freedom" needed a lawyer and received a police patrol instead. Raúl Castro's grandson hasn’t needed a single vote to gain access to jets, offices, intelligence meetings, and conversations about the national future.
A dialogue partner created both inside and outside of Cuba
It would be insufficient, however, to present El Cangrejo solely as a propaganda creation of Havana. Its emergence is accompanied by contacts that grant it effective power.
The CIA Director, John Ratcliffe, met with him in Havana on May 14 and conveyed to him, according to published information, the U.S. demand for introducing "fundamental changes". In mid-June, Rodríguez Castro personally supported an agreement with Vanguard Energy to send 250,000 barrels of fuel to Cuba, although the White House ultimately blocked it.
These episodes illustrate that his role is not merely decorative. A man without a known public position participates in security discussions, energy negotiations, and potential agreements on political prisoners. He does this not because he institutionally represents Cuba, but because he belongs to the family and military circle that controls the main levers of the State.
Here appears a contradiction that Washington should also explain.
The Trump administration argues that the Cuban system needs a profound transformation, has increased sanctions, demands the release of political prisoners, and rejects the economic reforms presented by Havana as insufficient. Marco Rubio has stated that the system is unlikely to reform unless new people or a new mindset emerge.
But a new face within the same family does not constitute a new legitimacy.
If the United States makes 'El Cangrejo' the necessary interlocutor for any negotiation, it risks helping to consolidate a succession designed from above.
Economic opening can serve to modernize crisis management without democratizing power. Cuba could receive investments, fuel, or relief from certain sanctions while continuing to deny its citizens the right to choose, organize, and participate in public decision-making.
According to Ricardo Herrero, American pressure may have helped create “Raulito” as a consensus figure among different sectors of the Cuban state. For a part of the elite, he could represent a limited market opening that ensures the survival of the system. For those demanding political change, such a move would be insufficient.
The problem is not that Washington talks to him. In a negotiation, those who have the real ability to make decisions usually intervene. The issue arises when that practical recognition begins to be conflated with legitimacy.
The Crab may have power. What it lacks is a mandate from the citizens, not even the one that is supposed to be held by the authorities of the dictatorship.
You may have access to information, control security levers, and gain access to Washington. None of this grants you the right to decide who represents Cuba, what reforms the country needs, or under what "conditions" people who should never have been imprisoned should be released.
11J remains open
There lies the central contradiction of this fifth anniversary.
In July 2021, thousands of citizens without titles, surnames, or privileges took to the streets to influence the future of their country. For acting as political subjects, they faced beatings, gunfire, trials, and sentences.
Five years later, a member of the ruling family may present themselves from Raúl Castro's office as a negotiator for that future without having received a single vote.
The regime views it as illegitimate for a citizen to shout "Freedom" on a street corner, yet finds it natural for a colonel without a representative position to decide whether political prisoners can be released and under what conditions.
Between Díaz-Canel's "combat order" and the offer to release prisoners "under the appropriate conditions," there exists the same concept of power: rights do not belong to citizens, but are granted, suspended, or negotiated by those in authority.
In 2021, that conception was expressed through police, special troops, and courts. In 2026, it attempts to present itself using the language of reforms, negotiations, and economic pragmatism. But its foundation remains unchanged: the citizen must obey; the family decides.
U.S. sanctions should not be assessed by the number of individuals and entities listed, but rather by verifiable outcomes. The pressure should lead to the unconditional release of prisoners, the annulment of their convictions, the end of harassment towards families, and the right of exiles to return.
It should not serve to replace an opaque negotiation between the old leadership and Washington with another opaque negotiation led by a younger member of the same family.
Political prisoners do not belong to the United States nor to the Cuban regime. They are not a commercial concession, a diplomatic gesture, or a bargaining chip for oil, investments, or relief from sanctions. They are citizens deprived of their freedom for exercising basic rights.
His release should be the starting point of any conversation, not the final reward of an agreement among elites.
Five years later, the question is not just whether July 11 weakened the regime. Civic rebellions are not measured solely by the outcome of a single day. July 11 shattered a fiction: that of a society that is immobile, resigned, and unanimously represented by those who have governed since 1959.
During those hours, citizens from dozens of cities took to the streets and spoke for themselves. The authorities responded by imprisoning them because they understood the real threat: these were not merely individuals asking for food, medicine, or electricity. They were Cubans asserting their status as political subjects.
That's why, five years later, the protests against blackouts are again giving rise to cries for freedom. The power may return, and the slogan remains. The government may temporarily connect a circuit, distribute some goods, or deploy police, but it cannot easily restore the lost obedience.
Cuba does not need a younger, more diplomatic, or better-dressed heir. It needs those who were imprisoned for speaking up to regain their freedom, for families to stop being punished, and for Cubans to be able to choose who represents them.
Between the combat order and the heir without votes remains the same debt.
The 11J will not be over as long as even one of its protesters remains in prison.
11J is not the past. 11J is still imprisoned.
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