For the second consecutive night, the Cuban regime prioritized the electricity supply in circuits of Havana that had been without power for weeks or months, which activists interpret as a deliberate maneuver to demobilize the population ahead of the national "cacerolazo" called for 9:00 PM on July 25, the eve of the so-called "Day of National Rebelliousness."
The images of entire neighborhoods suddenly illuminated were captured by the activist Leonardo Romero Negrín and shared on the social network X by independent journalist Magdiel Jorge Castro, who pointed out that the coincidence between the arrival of electricity and the exact time of the call was not a coincidence.
"For the second consecutive night, the regime is prioritizing circuits in Havana that have been dark for months. It’s not a coincidence… it’s the official response to the call for a national pot-banging protest every day at 9:00 PM," wrote the activist.
The maneuver, however, did not achieve its goal. Despite the light, the sound of pots and pans could be heard in multiple areas of the capital: Lawton, San Agustín, La Coronela, and La Lisa, as well as in Santiago de Cuba and Cienfuegos.
In Lawton, residents of Dolores Park used pots and fire extinguishers to amplify the noise of the protest, in one of the most striking images of that night.
The electrical context surrounding these events is devastating. On July 24, the Electric Union reported an impact of 2,315 MW at 9:10 PM, approaching the historic record of 2,341 MW recorded on July 8, when nearly 73% of the territory lost power simultaneously.
During July, the National Electric System experienced its fourth total collapse of the year, and in some neighborhoods of Havana, power outages reached 35 consecutive hours, with a demand of about 3,200 MW compared to a mere availability of 1,070 MW on the worst days.
It was precisely this crisis that fueled a wave of sustained protests throughout the month. The national call for a cacerolazo, driven by the Assembly of the Cuban Resistance, set 9:00 PM as the daily time for protest, with special emphasis on the eve of July 26 due to its significant symbolic value for the regime.
Romero Negrín, who documented the images of the illuminated neighborhoods, has a long history of arrests. On July 1st, he was arrested in Centro Habana during a pot-banging protest and was released two days later with a fine of 2,000 Cuban pesos.
The 26th of July is known as the "Day of National Rebellion," a date of significant symbolic value for the regime, commemorating the assault on the Moncada and Carlos Manuel de Céspedes barracks in 1953. This Sunday, the 73rd anniversary was celebrated in Pinar del Río with Miguel Díaz-Canel at the forefront and the notable absence of Raúl Castro.
Cubalex documented at least 38 arrests related to the casserole protests during July, while the Cuban Observatory of Conflicts recorded a record 107 street protests just in June.
"Let every day at 9 PM all of Cuba make itself heard and let the noise of the pots and pans resonate. Let’s extend the national cacerolazo for every day a Cuban family suffers an injustice, for every prisoner, for every child who is hungry. It is now," wrote Magdiel Jorge Castro at the end of his post.
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