Havana/The Police and State Security arrested Ernesto Medina and Kamil Zayas, members of the El4tico project, this Friday in Holguín in an operation that included the siege of a home in the Piedra Blanca neighborhood. Since 6:33 in the morning, residents of the area confirmed the presence of two patrol cars and a police truck. The deployment seemed typical of a raid against armed and dangerous criminals, although the “crime” of the young people who reside in the besieged house is different: publicly expressing what they think.
These are the members of an independent space for audiovisual creation and political opinion with a wide presence on social networks. The harassment of the repressive forces against them was recorded and disseminated by the communicators themselves in their digital stories. The action confirms a tightening of police pressure against a group that has gained visibility for its critical and direct speech against the Cuban regime.
In the video, which lasts just a few minutes, several agents – at least one in uniform and others in plain clothes – can be seen stationed at the entrance of the home. The officers exhibit their usual arrogance, although this time they are aware that they are being observed by a phone camera that transmits live. From inside the house, the members of the project repeatedly ask about the legal basis of the action, even knowing that in Cuba the State institutions act under the guidelines of the single party and its control apparatus.
The detainees were transferred to the Criminal Investigation headquarters, in the city of Holguín, popularly known as “Everybody sings.”
According to sources close to the members of El4tico, Medina was detained and left handcuffed. During the operation, the agents seized his electronic devices. Doris Santiesteban, who also lives in the property, remained there, although incommunicado. Zayas, another member of the project, was arrested in his own home, where the authorities also confiscated his work equipment.
The detainees were transferred to the Criminal Investigation headquarters, in the city of Holguín, popularly known as “Everybody sings,” in reference to the methods used during interrogations.
El4tico was promoted by these young people from Holguín who decided to convert a room of their home into an improvised studio to produce videos aimed at social networks. From there they publish political messages, civic analyzes and calls for citizen responsibility. His style is frontal, without metaphors or euphemisms, and appeals directly to a generation raised among scarcity, censorship and lack of expectations.
Unlike the image of a grateful youth that the regime tries to project, the members of the project escape from the applauding, submissive or silent mass to which power aspires. Its content exposes the moral degradation of the system from within and does so with a transparent, stark and pose-free aesthetic. This combination has allowed them to now gather more than 35,000 followers on Facebook and exceed 50,000 on Instagram, in addition to a growing audience on platforms such as TikTok and YouTube.
It is not the first time that the protagonists of El4tico face harassment from the authorities. In recent months they have reported verbal summonses, informal warnings and repeated police visits. According to what they say, the objective is not to investigate a specific crime, but to intimidate, wear down and force silence, a widely documented practice against activists, independent journalists and content creators uncomfortable for those in power.
They have understood that documenting harassment and making it public is, at the same time, a form of protection and reporting
The episode occurs just one day after President Miguel Díaz-Canel, in a press conference reserved for related mediarepeated the word “young people” 28 times to vindicate the role of the new generations. Judging by the facts, the El4tico boys are not among those whom the president asked to treat “as the important people they are within our society,” nor among those who – as he said – “continue to have confidence because they know that this life project is more possible here than anywhere else.”
The problem for the regime is that these young people belong to a generation that no longer waits for permission to speak nor is easily intimidated by the figure of the uniform. They have understood that documenting harassment and making it public is, at the same time, a form of protection and reporting.
Since the capture of Nicolás Maduro in Caracas, a tightening of repression has been recorded in Cuba. Only in January, the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (Ocdh) documented more than 400 repressive actions throughout the country, including police summonses, arbitrary arrests, acts of repudiation and threats against activists, journalists and content creators. In this context, a recent report from the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba reports on the direct participation of cadres from the Communist Party and the Young Communist League in acts of intimidation, including those directed against the United States charge d’affaires on the island, Mike Hammer.
By recording and sharing the scene, the members of El4tico move the conflict from the private sphere to the digital public space, where the State loses narrative control. The camera exposes what power prefers to happen in silence and shows the world the hypocrisy of a regime that victimizes itself in the face of threats from a foreign power while harassing, besieging and repressing its own dissatisfied citizens.
