Irregularities during the parliamentary elections, the drastic increase in crime and the precarious situation of prisons have dominated the flow of rumors about Cuba on social networks during the month of March. However, despite the fact that these are fragmentary data and not always verifiable, they make up a fabric of “underground” concerns that, in the long run –as demonstrated by a recent report of 14ymedio and Yucabyte– tend to become real information about the Island.
The general tension during the elections of candidates for deputies in Parliament had its correlate in the digital environment. Many users disclosed not only the “traps” of the Government to attract voters or force them to go to the polls, but also the alleged consequences that abstaining could have.
It was even stated that anyone who attended the polling station after applying for a visa or parole at the US Embassy you would automatically lose your right to access this service. The spread of this rumor was so alarming that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs itself claimed that it had contacted the US immigration authorities to deny the information.
Although no independent observers were allowed to verify the transparency of the voting, thousands of users left their impression on Twitter and Facebook. Many denounced what was jokingly called “Operation Tun-Tun”: the electoral authorities not only forced children to guard the ballot boxes, but sent them house to house to carry out reminders to guarantee broad participation. Despite this, users commented on the networks that many had avoided the polls. Others recounted that they had voted “a la cañona”, fraudulently representing several relatives, or that they had found their forged signature on the list of participants.
A clandestine group began to claim responsibility for several anti-government posters. These ‘graffiti’ contained offensive messages to the regime
In the heat of the elections, a clandestine group began to claim responsibility for several anti-government posters. Are paintedreported by the independent press, contained messages offensive to the regime such as “Down with the dictatorship” and “No to the Communist Party”, signed by the organization identified as El Nuevo Directorio.
As for the second source of rumors, reports of robberies, assaults, rapes and adolescent gangs in the peripheries of the Island are already common on social networks. In the face of police inaction, reporting from digital profiles is one of the few alternatives in the hands of the population to make visible the wave of crime that is spreading through Cuba.
The ravages of a youth gang known as C39, which operates in Las Tunas presumably under the command of an adult woman, has kept the peasants in check. The local Police, they say, is sitting idle and it is said that they even grant impunity to criminals.
The agents did arrive on time, several users say, when two men tried to rape a child in Nuevitas, Camagüey. However, in this case too, the action of the local inhabitants, who began to act on their own, was decisive in stopping the crime.
Also unprotected, according to multiple reports, are the residents of the capital’s Altahabana neighborhood, who suffer frequent assaults in their own homes. Under the guise of “messengers” who have come to deliver a package, they break into homes to rob, threatening tenants with bladed weapons.
Others are not lucky and, after the encounter with the criminals, they end up murdered. This is what happened, says a user, with a peasant from San Juan de los Yeras, in Villa Clara, who was stabbed after his horse was stolen.
Although it is rare that the official media or the Ministry of the Interior offer an official version of the facts, some institutions often expose some details. This was the case with the death of a baby abandoned by his mother, a student at the Villa Clara Sports Initiation School. It was the directors of the center who, in a brief Facebook statement and during a meeting, of which recordings were leaked, commented on the seriousness of the event.
The most difficult rumors to verify are those that refer to the most hermetic environments and monitored by the regime, such as prisons. The conditions in which the prisoners live had traditionally been one of the best kept secrets by the Government. However, the increase in the prison population on the Island and the media attention that, since the protests of July 11, 2021, has been on Cuban prisons, have helped to clarify how the inmates live.
The harassment and manipulation suffered by the relatives of political prisoners by jailers or State Security has also been exposed on social networks.
A common prisoner, identified as Kevin, was allegedly beaten to death by his jailer, named Yulieski Montero, at the Quivicán prison in Mayabeque. Those who shared the event denounced that other inmates throughout the country have suffered mistreatment at the hands of the police officers who guard them or other prisoners whom they incite to punish the “troublemakers.”
The harassment and manipulation suffered by the relatives of political prisoners by jailers or State Security agents when they go on regular visits has also been exposed on social networks. However, it is rare for the relatives of common prisoners to air events like these for fear of reprisals and the consequences that the complaint could have for the inmates themselves.
This type of situation results in that, although a large part of the rumors collected become, in the long run, sources of verified information –or end up being denied–, there is other information that cannot be verified. This “informal” flow of data runs parallel to the regime’s press and often becomes a counter-narrative of the official version of events.
However, there is also the case of rumors that remain static, without being able to verify or deny, and that have become constant in the collection. This is the case of the illness and death of Raúl Castro –and also of other leaders, such as Ramiro Valdés–, a rumor repeated throughout 2022 and that has also been registered in the first months of 2023. Or of the reports about a “fraudulent transition” or “fraud change”, which describe a kind of conspiracy by the top of the regime to fake a transition to democracy from power itself, without compromising the interests of certain military clans historically linked to the Castros.
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