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The wave of university rebellion continues in Cuba, despite the regime's efforts to silence them by every possible means. Students from the universities of Santa Clara and Santiago de Cuba have made public several statements accusing ETECSA of legitimizing inequality through excessive fee increases and denouncing repression and censorship within their academic institutions.
They do it in a tense context, just when the Faculty of Mathematics, Physics, and Computer Science at the University of Havana, the main promoter of the student strike, decided to reverse its decision on June 9, other faculties in the east and center of the country have chosen to maintain and strengthen the protest.
The first statement was by the intellectual Alina Bárbara López Hernández, on behalf of a group of students from the Central University "Marta Abreu" of Las Villas (UCLV).
The letter highlights five alarming issues: censorship in university media, complicity of the FEU with the rate hikes, surveillance by State Security, institutional clientelism, and lack of transparency in discussions with ETECSA.
"A socialist state-owned company cannot legitimize informational apartheid," they assert. Quoting Chibás, they conclude: "Shame over Money."
In Santiago de Cuba, second, third, and fourth-year Communication Studies students at the University of Oriente also raised their voices. In their statement, which references Marti and Fidel, they assert that restricting access to the internet undermines their professional training and delivers a direct blow to the country's future.
"It is not a privilege of elites; it is an inalienable right of those of us who build the future of the nation.", they stated in their declaration.
Those from Letras also joined in. From their position, they warn that the rates “worsen inequalities” and that what is at stake is not just the cost of a megabyte, but access to knowledge and digital citizenship itself.
The most powerful moment came when the Journalism students from the same university officially declared a university strike until the rate hike is reversed. In their letter, they demand their right to be “the voice of the people” and quote Julio Antonio Mella with a heartbreaking passage. “Blood is my words, and my soul is wounded as I behold the university as it stands today.”
However, not everything has been resistance. Activist Lara Crofs published a private conversation that reveals the cost of speaking out in Cuba. In the message, one of the student writers admits to having deleted the statement due to pressure and abandonment. "The very guys who wrote that with me backed off and left me alone. I no longer trust them."
Crofs stated that young people are under tremendous pressure, facing "the political hurricane" that is occurring on the island.
Also, over the weekend, it was revealed that State Security visited the homes of UCLV students, threatening them with imprisonment and expulsion for organizing a university parade.
One of the young men, administrator of the WhatsApp channel "The Voice of Everyone," was forced to close it and write a public retraction. "They were threatened in front of their families," they reported.
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