One year has passed since pro-democracy protests broke out across Cuba, representing the largest popular protest against the island's communist government since Fidel Castro came to power in 1959.
Frustrated by the worst economic downturn since the end of the Cold War, the government's continued repression of artists, musicians, and dissidents, and persistent power outages, protesters took to the streets in the city of San Antonio de los Baños on July 11, 2021. Videos of the protests went viral on Cuban social media, inspiring weeks of revolt against the Cuban government across the island. Unlike previous upheavals, like the infamous 1994 Maleconazo protests that took place in Havana, these protests spread beyond Cuba's main cities and into small towns.
