A video sent to journalist Mario J. Pentón and published early Saturday morning documents the true scale of the protests on Friday, July 24, in the Havana municipality of San Miguel del Padrón.
The images show dozens of neighbors from the neighborhood La Cumbre—adjacent to Diezmero—marching in a noisy pot protest, shouting "freedom" along a street where a dumpster can be seen on fire.
The nighttime images, captured by local residents and shared by Pentón on his X account, also show the massive arrival of uniformed personnel from MININT with trucks, patrols, motorcycles, and other vehicles.
In the audio of the video, a neighbor can be heard identifying the regime's vehicles: "All those cars belong to them. The truck stopped there... This is to pick up people."
The contradiction highlighted by the protesters is hard to ignore: the Cuban regime claims it has no fuel to generate electricity—the direct trigger of the protests—but it does have the resources to mobilize dozens of motorized vehicles to quell the demonstration.
On Friday night, the National Electric Union reported an impact of 2,315 MW at 21:10 hours, nearing the historic record of 2,341 MW set on July 8.
During this month, the National Electroenergetic System experienced at least four total outages, and in some neighborhoods of Havana, the blackouts lasted for 35 consecutive hours.
The cacerolazo on Friday was a response to a national call issued by the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance for 9:00 p.m., on the eve of July 26. The regime attempted to defuse the protest by restoring electricity in several neighborhoods right at that hour, but the demonstrations continued nonetheless in Havana, Santiago de Cuba, and Cienfuegos.
The police deployment in El Diezmero and La Cumbre was not an isolated incident. Citizen journalist Yainier Hidalgo Bajuelo confirmed on Facebook the presence of law enforcement in the area, and a viral video circulating on social media was titled: “Military deployment in El Diezmero, the Americans didn’t arrive, it's against a defenseless people.”
San Miguel del Padrón has experienced months of increasing unrest. In May, residents protested with the slogan "Power and food!"; in June, there was a tire burning; on July 15, residents reported a month without water; and on July 22, a bonfire was noted in La Cumbre. In Lawton, another troubled area of Havana, residents used pots and fire extinguishers to amplify the noise of the protest.
The repressive pattern of the regime in July includes the deployment of black berets from the National Special Brigade of MININT in El Vedado on July 18, and a police concentration in Old Havana on July 12. Cubalex recorded 319 repressive events and 253 demonstrations just in June 2026.
"The militarization is aimed not at an external enemy but at the Cuban population itself," warned Laritza Diversent, director of Cubalex, in recent statements.
Filed under: