There seems to be a mass protest going on in a town 25k from Havana that's being described as the biggest since the 1990s 'special period'. Internet connection has been cut so there's little video of what's happening.
https://twitter.com/norges14/status/1414269541711073282
It's being described as involving thousands of people, which is unheard of. And reports of a similar protest in a town at the other end of the island and now another town. Via @MGVivero 
Via @yoanisanchez This is San Antonio de los Baños, 25k from Havana.
Countdown to them shutting off the Island's Internet entirely.
Lots of rumours of how many towns in Cuba are protesting but there's definitely two towns mass protesting. And its about food and its about #PatriaYVida and its about fed up and over it Cubans.
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and the San Isidro Movement call on Cubans to go to the Malecón to demand freedom in Havana.
https://twitter.com/MarioJPenton/status/1414277076916523008
Another video showing the first protest this afternoon.
https://twitter.com/MarioJPenton/status/1414265736567173124
None of this was organised. These aren't planned protests at all. It's undoubtedly had a spark, which could have been a number of things.
'The fear was lost'
https://twitter.com/Yusnaby/status/1414292826628759552
Santiago de Cuba.
https://twitter.com/SOSCUBA9/status/1414286471465521152
Gonna cut the Island off from the world and say nothing about what is happening on state TV. And see what happens. Sounds like a plan.
https://twitter.com/chispalibertad/status/1414288600980770820
What is happening is *completely unprecedented*. The protests in the 90s during the 'special period' or after the hurricanes or when they banned gay pride or when they arrested artists were far smaller and in one place.
"A large police deployment in the Malecón [seafront] area of Havana and a lot of movement of soldiers to prevent a massive demonstration against the regime." @14ymedio
"I am under siege." If news of what's happening gets patchy it'll be because those trying to report what is happening in Cuba will be locked up at home with no comms.
https://twitter.com/ilianahcuba/status/1414296310451159041
There are *scores of reasons why Cubans are taking to the streets but through all of them, all those reasons, is a sense of petty indignity and real anger at what Cuba is now. Here's one.
https://twitter.com/pauloCanning/status/1405545973103828993
Cuba's being cut off. It's happening now. Whole island.
https://twitter.com/IsmarioRodrguez/status/1414300647088967681
👇👇 Videos that have made it out are from 7 places.
https://twitter.com/invntario/status/1414302400567922689
There are demonstrators on the Malecon.
https://twitter.com/JimenezEnoa/status/1414305537466961922
One of Cuba's most famous journalists. Locked up in her house, as she so very often is.
https://twitter.com/Luz_Cuba/status/1414305020753981444
Bit teary because it was right before the Malecon that Cuban police broke up the #11m gay pride in defiance of Mariela Castro march 2 years ago.
https://twitter.com/pauloCanning/status/1414307565807312896
Just as Fidel did in 1994.
https://twitter.com/CNN_Oppmann/status/1414300183148613636
There are videos of groups chanting and walking through central Havana to the Malecon with nobody apparently trying to stop them.
"The streets of #Cuba they belong to the revolutionaries." 😬
https://twitter.com/cubadebatecu/status/1414306917422444549
Tania Bruguera: "They have just told me from San Antonio that there is a gigantic brigade of black berets, they beat and shoot tear gas, that the people do not give in. They have cut off the power and they are without internet."
Havana too. Cops laying into Cubans.
https://twitter.com/JimenezEnoa/status/1414314899291922434
Diaz-Canal: "la orden de combate está dada" The combat order has been given.
Diaz-Canal is going to "separate the confused revolutionaries." As you do.
20 protests now mapped with video by @invntario (who were set up to watch Cuban government covid-19 data).
That's a hard currency shop being looted. The growth of these has been called economic apartheid havanatimes.org/diaries/osmelr…
https://twitter.com/Yusnaby/status/1414329247099932679
"We are not going to hand over the sovereignty of our Homeland!" To "confused revolutionaries" who use social media? The messaging's a bit borked. granma.cu/cuba/2021-07-1…
The folks Diaz-Canal is pushing out onto streets cleared by the cops - to cheer for him, President Diaz-Canal. Via @ngameztorres
https://twitter.com/GerardoPPortal/status/1414330729358573576
Side effect is Granma's site takes forever.
https://twitter.com/DougMadory/status/1414327987525275659
Matanzas, earlier. That's a CCP official's car.
https://twitter.com/Yusnaby/status/1414349719736922113
From @14ymedio's reporting on the town where today's protests started.
The propaganda machine has found one American flag. Only takes one.
Nobody Believes You.
https://twitter.com/KawsachunNews/status/1414336773099032587
👀
'Cuba is a full-blown social outbreak. There have been some episodes of violence, but in general they have been peaceful demonstrations of peoples with a historical local identity. This is a horizontal, anti-authoritarian movement.'
https://twitter.com/librocrepusculo/status/1414352432633729030
34 protests now mapped by @invntario, all over Cuba
"Abajo Díaz-Canel", "In unity is strength", "Libertad" heard throughout Cuba, reports @14ymedio In 1 case thus far answered by rubber bullets 14ymedio.com/cuba/reportan-… We can't see more because more can't be uploaded.
@14ymedio This is not the best propaganda piece, given how the to camera continues after the not that big protest for Diaz-Canal has passed :/
https://twitter.com/teleSURtv/status/1414369523407405060
Ben Norton is going with 'but it's tiny'. And CIA. But mainly tiny, small & of no consequence. The thing is the size, see.
Inspired by Galloway's recent victory.
https://twitter.com/RazonesdeC/status/1414362137879846912
Whole bunch of people being arrested. Tremenda Nota is a website for the marginal, for black and LGBT Cubans, for women. That's who it serves.
https://twitter.com/TremendanotaC/status/1414380782009913347
Cubans, in Cuba, protesting, well, him are "the campaign of imperialism against Cuba", says the Foreign Minister.
https://twitter.com/BrunoRguezP/status/1414334964670373889
"Salaried agents", he call them.
Now at 62 protests mapped by @invntario, all over Cuba.
Cuban gay journo: "They bent me over grabbed me hard by the hair. They did it to punish me. There was no other reason I never resisted. My glasses fell off & were consciously kicked. Now I write by sticking to the screen. I am myopic. I will write anyway."
https://twitter.com/MGVivero/status/1414448263277727745
If this sort of language comes out from the folks who signed the Nobel for Cuban doctors thing I would be very surprised. Even though it's kindof what they actually signed up to.
https://twitter.com/will__grant/status/1414477982106849281
"Last week calls for the government to accept humanitarian aid increased as Cubans began documenting on social media the collapse of the health system in the province of Matanzas, the epicenter of the COVID-19 pandemic in the island."
Report @ngameztorres
miamiherald.com/news/nation-wo…
Report @ngameztorres
miamiherald.com/news/nation-wo…
They will try to pretend that few Cubans came out and that everything is now back to 'normal'. Here's Telesur doing exactly that.
https://twitter.com/Watcher_Ven/status/1414394457672327170
Something that seems to have happened is that Diaz-Canal's visibly angry speech, breaking into national TV, seems to have alerted Cubans who don't use social media, who did not know, and pushed them out onto the streets.
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