(5 Jun 2025)
RESTRICTION SUMMARY:
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Havana, Cuba – 05 June 2025
1. Various of university students waiting outside the faculty to enter a meeting
2. Student demands are read in a communiqué from a cell phone
3. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) (No name given), student:
“We understand perfectly well the financial situation of the Cuban Telecommunications Company (ETECSA) and of the country, but our position is that this situation cannot be placed on the shoulders of the people. It cannot be that the people have to assume this economic burden.”
4. Students entering the faculty
5. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) (No name given), student:
“Many people have tried to misrepresent this as a protest, a strike, a demonstration, no. It is not. It is a non-attendance (to classes), it is not a renunciation of dialogue. It is a way to exert a peaceful, legal and institutional pressure with the protection of the University Student Federation (FEU) and our space, which is what we can do."
6. Students sitting in the university gardens
7. SOUNDBITE (Spanish) (No name given), student:
"To exert pressure in this way so that finally there is an open dialogue, an exchange that really has the objective of reaching positions that are of solution. And also the position of the University, it must be said, at least of several faculties, the position is firm, the measures are not going to be accepted and we do not want to compromise either. The measures have to go backwards and we have to look for alternatives so as not to be burdened with that.”
8 Student walking
9. Various of Alma Mater statues and university steps
STORYLINE:
An increase in mobile Internet access rates in Cuba by the state-owned telecommunications company ETECSA sparked an unusual protest among university students that has grown this week.
University students from various faculties on Thursday publicly expressed their rejection of the rate increase for a service they consider fundamental.
“We understand perfectly well the financial situation of the ETECSA, the financial situation of the country, but our position is that this situation cannot be placed on the shoulders of the people. It cannot be that the people have to assume this economic burden,” said a student from the History faculty who did not want to give his name.
He rejected claims this was a protest, ans instead said i was the channel they had available to make their point heard.
Three students from the Faculty of Mathematics, wishing to remain anonymous due to the sensitive situation, stated that they were on “strike,” meaning they would not be attending classes.
Two teachers with whom AP spoke, who preferred to remain anonymous because they were not authorized to comment, confirmed movement among students, including some non-attendance at exams, which is striking given that the dates coincide with the end of the school cycle.
They also said that ETECSA executives visited the faculties this week to meet with students and teachers.
On May 30, ETECSA announced increases and restrictions on the purchase of mobile data service packages unless they were paid for in dollars from abroad. The mobile service that Cubans only recently gained access to in 2018 is in high demand on the island.
In a statement written by students at the School of Biology on Thursday, which The Associated Press had access to, they demanded “a direct bilateral exchange” with members of the country’s Council of Ministers, where they can be heard as "legitimate actors in the construction of alternatives that benefit the whole society."
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Author: AP Archive
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