LatinNews Daily - 9 June 2025

*US-based press freedom watchdog Inter American Press Association (IAPA) has expressed “deep concern” over a recent increase in mobile internet fees in Cuba announced by Cuba’s Prime Minister Manuel Marrero in December 2024, and implemented on 30 May by Cuba’s state-owned telecommunications monopoly, Empresa de Telecomunicaciones de Cuba S.A. (Etecsa). With the changes, Etecsa capped subsidised data plans, offered at a rate of CUP360 (around US$1 on the informal market, according to the IAPA) at six gigabytes (GB) per month, with those wishing to purchase additional packages forced to pay much higher prices. IAPA cites information available on the official Etecsa website and press reports as saying that a plan with an extra 3GB of data costs CUP3,360, which it notes is in stark contrast with Cuba’s minimum monthly wage set at CUP2,100. IAPA describes the changes as an “indirect censorship mechanism that deepens the informational isolation of the population and restricts the right to freedom of expression”. The rate hikes have provoked anger on the island, particularly from students, prompting Etecsa president Tania Velázquez Rodríguez to announce on 2 June that students would be entitled to a second 6GB package for CUP360, providing 12GB per month for CUP720, although this has yet to dampen criticism. The rate hikes come as the Partido Comunista de Cuba (PCC) is in desperate search of funds amid an ongoing economic crisis stemming from multiple factors, including devastation wreaked by various hurricanes and natural disasters, the impact of US sanctions, crumbling energy infrastructure, and the impact of the coronavirus (Covid-19) pandemic, among other things.

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