A group of women from the town of Levisa, in the Holguin municipality of Mayarí, blocked the bridge over the Cabonico River with tree branches and pots in late September to demand the restoration of electricity service after nearly a month of continuous blackouts, and the protest yielded concrete results the following day, according to the independent media 14ymedio.
The protesters chanted, "Turn on the power! Turn on the power!" while dozens of men watched from the sidelines and vehicles were stopped at both ends of the road. Police officers were present but did not intervene, marking a notable contrast to the usual repressive response of the regime to similar protests.
The action, documented by the independent media Árbol Invertido on September 25, resulted in immediate concessions from the authorities: electricity was restored in the community and 14 pounds of rice per person were distributed to all residents, according to 14ymedio.
"A total of 14 pounds of rice were given to each member of the community, and they spent two or three days bringing double the bread to the store," a resident of Levisa told 14ymedio.
"There were communities that harvested around 90 pounds of rice," added the same source.
Levisa was experiencing nearly a month without electricity at the time of the protest, a situation that her neighbors attribute to the Electric Company of Mayarí. The municipality has a history of extreme blackouts: in March 2026, it recorded 51 consecutive hours without electricity, which also sparked protests, and in June, the residents of Levisa had already taken to the streets to demand action for the same reason.
«If the situation is terrible for the provincial capital, it’s doubly terrible for the municipalities,» a resident of Holguín with family in Mayarí told 14ymedio. The same resident drew a direct conclusion from what happened in Levisa: «What it illustrates is that we need to protest. If there is no pressure, the Government does not act.»
The outcome of this demonstration is exceptional in the current Cuban context. The regime's usual response to protests over blackouts has been arbitrary detention and criminal proceedings.
For example, the evangelical pastor Alexis Padrón Lorenzo, 58 years old, was arrested on June 10 in Regla, Havana, after protesting due to the lack of electricity and water, and he spent three months in custody before being released on September 11 with precautionary measures and uncertainty regarding whether the criminal proceedings against him would continue, as reported by the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights.
The legal organization Cubalex documented 280 repressive events during August across the island, a month when protests decreased to 94 compared to the 200 recorded in July. In September, the Cuban Conflict Observatory counted 663 protests and 136 acts of repression throughout the country, confirming that citizen pressure does not wane despite the cost it often incurs.
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