Cuban Govt. Blocks Internet and Ham Radio Signals. Could It Happen Here? by Aden Tate for The Organic Prepper
On July 11, Cuban citizens rallied in the streets to protest food and medicine shortages and electricity outages. The demonstration was one of the biggest since the days of Castro. Cuba is going through its worst economic crisis in decades, along with a resurgence of coronavirus cases. Cuban officials blame the decades-long embargo with the United States for the collapsing economy.
Within two days, the Cuban government began restricting internet access
The internet, basically unavailable until 2008, has only been widely available in Cuba Since July 2019, when the Cuban government began lifting restrictions on internet access. Since that time, Cuba has slowly entered the digital world, with mobile access to the internet becoming available in December 2018.
As Cuba’s citizens protested, many of them pulled out their cellphones to post videos and images across social media platforms. The Cuban government began immediately blocking access to those platforms. This is reminiscent of Arab Spring, when the governments of Egypt, Libya, and Syria completely shut down the internet to quell the protests. Other governments in the Arab world were rumored to have arrested and even executed people for things they posted on the internet. (source)
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Reports state the Cuban government partially blames the U.S. for the street protests saying it used social media tools such as Twitter to help organize.
Relatives say the government is keeping them in the dark about family members
Norges Rodríguez: Right now, there are no protests…there is a lot of repression. There are people who are missing, and their families don’t know anything about them…[source]
Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch (HRW) say the majority of those arrested are incommunicado, and the location of some is still unknown. [source]
United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights Michelle Bachelet expressed her concerns over the alleged use of excessive force when calling for the release of those detained. “I am very concerned at the alleged use of excessive force against demonstrators in Cuba and the arrest of a large number of people, including several journalists,” Bachelet said. [source]
The internet is not the only thing down in Cuba
Due to the internet outages, likely done to block the flow of information from Cuba, some citizens have turned to what many preppers see as their fallback, ham radio. They’ve been using the 40m ham band to communicate with family members in Florida.
Now, mysteriously, nearly all of the 40m band is jammed.
Anecdotal reports began to flood in by Cubans stating that the Cuban government was jamming their broadcasts, and it appears that they’re right. As John Nass of Ham Radio Crash Course shows, there seems to be irrefutable proof that the Cuban government is blocking the ham radio broadcasts of its own citizens.
