State Security agents arrested two mothers on Thursday morning at the police station on Zapata and C in Havana, just hours after protests were reported in the El Fanguito neighborhood due to prolonged power outages.
The complaint was made by the rapper and activist Eliécer Márquez Duany (El Funky) through his social media.
One of the detainees was identified as María Yilian Franco Díaz, who, according to the report, was taken to the police station along with her four-year-old son, José Luis Navarro. El Funky circulated photographs of the young woman with the minor, as well as an image taken during the protest in which she appears among the demonstrators.
The arrests occurred less than 24 hours after residents of El Fanguito blocked 23rd Street, one of the main avenues in Havana, to demand the restoration of basic services after being without electricity, water, and gas for over 48 hours.
During the demonstration, dozens of residents, including several children, sat down on the roadway to block traffic.
“Turn around, we’ve been without power for more than 24 hours, and there are children here crying. Turn around, turn around,” a neighbor told the motorcycle driver who was trying to get through the blockade.
They restored the service and then the arrests occurred
A few hours after the protest, an employee from the electric company restored the electricity in the neighborhood, which prompted immediate reactions from the residents.
"See? It wasn't that difficult. How shameless!" exclaimed a woman when the power came back on.
However, the apparent response to the demands was followed by a repressive operation. The next morning, arrests of participants in the protest began.
El Funky also shared a video in which a supposed State Security agent can be heard warning residents that they will be identified if they share images of the protests on social media, even if these are posted from abroad.
"I am from Security. I know who uploaded the photo, even if it was sent to a relative abroad and that relative posted it. I track down the link, whatever I have, the address and everything; I will find them and we'll see what happens then," the officer stated in the recording.
In the same audio, he stated that filming the agents does not constitute a crime, but he asserted that publishing those images does. "You commit the crime when you post me on social media without my authorization and without my consent," he said.
A repeating pattern
The case of El Fanguito follows a pattern observed in other protests that have occurred this year: after the demonstrations, the authorities temporarily restore some services to quell the mobilization and subsequently detain or summon those who participated or shared images.
The protest occurs amid the worsening energy crisis in Cuba. This Thursday, the electricity generation deficit exceeded 2,000 MW again, leaving much of the country without power and prompting new protests with pots and pans in Santiago de Cuba.
According to the Cuban Conflict Observatory, 107 protests were recorded on the Island during June, of which 82 took place in Havana. In April and May, the organization documented 1,133 and 1,311 demonstrations, respectively, in a context marked by blackouts, shortages, and the deterioration of living conditions.
El Fanguito, located on the banks of the Almendares River in the Plaza de la Revolución municipality, is one of the most vulnerable settlements in the capital. According to a study by the magazine El Estornudo, for years the majority of its homes remained unregistered in official records, with only one being legalized by the State, reflecting the prolonged institutional abandonment that its residents are denouncing.
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