Who is behind the Facebook group where the protests began in Cuba?

By Sarah Marsh - Reuters on NBC News

"Tired of not having electricity?" Read a post in a Facebook group for residents of the Cuban city of San Antonio de los Baños on July 10.

"Tired of having to listen to the impudence of a government that does not care about you?" He added, "it is time to go out and demand. Do not criticize at home: let's make them listen to us."

The next day, thousands of people took to the streets of San Antonio, a city of about 50,000 inhabitants, about 20 miles southwest of Havana, kicking off an unusual wave of protests across the country against the communist regime.

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The unrest has been growing throughout Latin America and the Caribbean as unrest has spread over the closures and quarantines imposed by COVID-19 and the increase in poverty.

But in Cuba, authorities have traditionally controlled public spaces, claiming that unity is key to resisting coup attempts by the old Cold War enemy, the United States.

The protests, the most widespread in Cuba since Fidel Castro's revolution in 1959, seemed largely spontaneous, as Cubans vented their frustrations over long lines to get food, power cuts and shortages of medicines, as well as by restrictions on civil liberties.

However, an investigation by Cuban non-state media El Estornudo - cited by state television and confirmed by Reuters news agency - recently showed that the first protest was called through a San Antonio community forum for local people and individuals. who had emigrated.

["We want freedom": thousands of Cubans take to the streets to denounce shortages and repression]

The Facebook group called Ciudad del Humor - nickname by which San Antonio is known, which hosts a biannual humor festival - was created for the first time in 2017 as a social space, according to one of its three administrators, Alexander Pérez, based in Miami Florida.

Over time, people also began to voice their complaints, explains Pérez, 44, a pastor of the Seventh-day Adventist Church. That led him and the other administrators, Danilo Roque and Lázaro González, to try to "educate" them. about their civil rights and to claim them through a peaceful protest.

Neither Roque nor González, whom Pérez describes as two men younger than him, who live in San Antonio and operate under pseudonyms to avoid retaliation, answered questions from the outlet.

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History shows how the recent expansion of Internet access in Cuba has led to a change in the rise of forums on social networks to share criticism and mobilize.

It also shows how the strengthening of relations with the Cuban diaspora - thanks to the internet and greater freedom of movement - is influencing the island's politics.

Virtual communities such as La Ciudad del Humor exist throughout the country and emigrants are urging the local population to continue protesting and expressing their solidarity, and some are even urging violence.

All of this poses a challenge to the government, which has allowed relatively free access to the Internet, unlike China, which blocks many Western social media applications.

[Mass protests by Cuban exiles in the US support demands for "freedom" from the island]

Cuba has blamed the protests on meddling in the network of US-backed counterrevolutionaries, which for decades has openly tried to force reforms through sanctions and funding democratic programs.

The administrators of La Ciudad del Humor did not receive any US funding or coordinate the protests with other cities, Pérez says.

Cuba, where the state has a telecommunications monopoly, has suffered intermittent interruptions in access to the Internet and social media since July 11, in an apparent attempt to prevent further unrest.

The protests dissipated in a couple of days amid those cuts, a large deployment of security forces and a wave of arrests.

Posts in La Ciudad del Humor - which grew from about 4,000 to almost 10,000 members after the July 11 protest - show users reminiscing, selling items, promoting businesses and complaining about local problems like the water supply.

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Pérez says administrators decided three years ago to try to rally the community to demonstrate over shared grievances, but with little success.

Last month they felt that it was time to try again.

The pandemic and the tightening of US sanctions have aggravated Cuba's economic problems, plunging it into its deepest crisis since the fall of the Soviet Union 30 years ago.

And the increase in COVID-19 cases is putting its already precarious health infrastructure to the limit.

"We decided that this was the moment," says Pérez.

The announcement of the protest in the church park at 11 a.m. was passed by word of mouth and via messaging apps, according to three San Antonio residents who requested anonymity.

Pérez says he had so little expectation that someone would show up that he went to the beach that day.

So he was stunned when he got a call confirming that the initial summons had turned into a snowball.

["They force me to go with them."

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"Of course, we never imagined that San Antonio would be the spark that lit the flame that made Cuba go out on the street three hours later," he acknowledges.

Videos on social media showed San Antonio protesters shouting anti-government slogans such as "freedom" and "we are not afraid."

"My people took to the streets because they can't take it anymore," says a resident who requested anonymity.

A few hours later, President Miguel Díaz-Canel himself appeared on national television to demonstrate that "the streets belong to the revolutionaries."

Some videos on social media showed him being booed as he spoke, but unrest there and elsewhere was soon reduced by the crackdown.

Pérez points out that the strong security presence in San Antonio meant that Cubans would have to wait until another protest.

However, the Government has already approved reforms, such as the elimination of customs restrictions for travelers bringing medicine and food, in response to the demonstrations.

"If we achieve this in a few hours of protest, what would happen if we spent three days in the streets?"