A man is arrested during a demonstration against the government of President Miguel Diaz-Canel in Arroyo Naranjo Municipality, Havana on July 12, 2021. (Photo by YAMIL LAGE / AFP) (Photo by YAMIL LAGE/AFP via Getty Images)
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When asked if the government had intentionally cut access to the internet, Foreign Minister Bruno Rodriguez told reporters on Tuesday that the situation was “complicated.”As protests continued in more than a dozen locations on Monday and Tuesday, the government’s actions denied protestors the main weapon in their arsenal.“Our weapon is the internet. If they take away the internet we are unarmed,” Gino Ocumares, a Havana resident, told Reuters as he tried but failed to get online at a government Wi-Fi hotspot. “The government does not want people to see the truth.”The Cuban government only gave its citizens widespread access to the internet in late 2018, allowing people to get online through mobile connections. But the space remains extremely tightly controlled and only accessible through government-run entities.Prior to Sunday’s shutdowns, Cuba already had the world's fourth most restrictive internet freedom environment, only ranking better than China, Iran, and Syria in the annual Freedom on the Net report produced by Freedom House.The result of the blackout in Cuba is that information about how the government is responding to the protests is hard to track, as activists are unable to share information about their locations or safety.At least one protester has been killed in clashes with police, and according to Amnesty International, over 140 people have been detained or disappeared since the protests broke out on Sunday.“Nearly all my friends are without internet,” Ramírez, the activist in Havana said. “And we don't know where many of them are.”