Havana Cuba. – The independent media YuccaByte Has made an interview to Christian González de la Moneda, known on social networks as San Memero, to learn first-hand how the 22-year-old man managed to leave Cuba and the harassment he suffered from the political police on the island.
Christian, currently based in Miami, says that he was studying at the UCI (University of Computer Sciences) when he began to be interested in the world of memes, which emerged almost at the same time as the arrival of the internet in Cuba. He explains that in that first approach, the most visited humor account was that of Cacique Urbano, which had 3,000 followers, a figure that seemed enormous to him.
González began his production by inserting funny comments into images, but later he became involved in more serious content. Upon the events of july 2021 recounts:
“On July 11, when we decided to leave, we were not thinking of protesting and then heading home. It was thinking that the dictatorship was going to fall that day (…). It was something my generation had never seen.”
He confesses that he felt “protected” knowing that international attention was in Cuba at that time, but when the demonstration reached the Capitol and an individual in civilian clothes handcuffed his brother, accusing him of being “just another criminal,” there was a struggle with the paramilitaries, who were “the ones who caught you and handed you over to the police (…). We went from station to station looking for my brother”.
When he finally found his whereabouts, they reassured him that they were going to release him, but he had to return the next day so as not to violate the curfew and avoid being arrested. The next day, they told him that his brother had been transferred to the Valle Grande prison, which they could not verify. He was released four days later.
After these events, Christian lost access to his Twitter account and realized that one user in particular had been very aware of his tweets, as well as his Instagram account and even the WhatsApp group that the students from your classroom to socialize and exchange reference material during the pandemic. Eventually, Christian learned that the FEU was passing information about his person to State Security.
The first summons came from the dean, supposedly to talk about her publications on the networks. That day he ended up being “interviewed” by agents Camilo and Esteban, from the political police.
The young man recounts that during an arrest at the police unit on Aguilera street, Diez de Octubre municipality, they accused him of having bought a sweater with the acronym DPEPDPE, and that he was organizing a demonstration for the 1st. of May. There they showed him a folder with copies of all his tweets and assured him, without proof, that the memers were financed from abroad. They explicitly threatened him with making a case for him and imprisoning him for a long time. The pressure he was subjected to during the “interview” caused him to have a severe panic attack during a Physics exam, which he attended less than an hour after the interrogation had ended.
In González de la Moneda’s account it is clear that State Security has free access to the UCI and other educational institutions in the country. The repression against him continued to work indirectly, with a passive-aggressive character, until he was forced to drop out of the race.
Christian admits that after those incidents he lived scared to death, that leaving Cuba was always in his plans, but he wanted to do it legally and after finishing his university studies. Things did not turn out that way.
“On July 11 I said ‘I have to go, yes or yes’, because I am going to end up in prison (…). There were moments when I could not remain silent, ”he declared. The day he was finally leaving Cuba, he was stopped at the airport by a high-ranking officer who made it clear that she knew who he was.
“That was the last blow,” he says. The young man acknowledged that he was feeling fear until the moment the plane took off.
