Five examples of how Christians raise their voices with humour and courage to explain the precarious life without freedoms under the Castro regime.
.jpg "Photos of Cuban influencers mentioned by the author. / Photo: [link]Árbol Invertido[/link].")
Photos of Cuban influencers mentioned by the author. / Photo: [link]Árbol Invertido[/link].
The demonstrations against the Cuban dictatorship that took place on 11 and 12 July 2021 originated from a call on Facebook. Since then, social media has been the best platform for expression for the island's inhabitants.
The so-called influencers made themselves known before, during and after these events, and of all those who could be classified as anti-Castro, there are five from the evangelical community who stand out. The media outlet Árbol Invertido profiled each of them to learn about their work.
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This young woman is a 20-year-old Christian from Havana who used her social media accounts to expose the harsh daily reality of Cubans: power cuts, shortages, low wages and the loss of hope.
Her 100,000 followers on Facebook make her a dangerous name in the eyes of the state. Due to pressure on her employer, a non-state company in Old Havana, she was dismissed. But her voice has not stopped being heard.
In October 2025, she published her first viral video explaining the bureaucratic disaster on the island, which delayed her university degree for months. She then began posting videos on her YouTube channel reflecting on the lack of freedom of expression and the slogan that “education in Cuba is free”.
She said she would never give up her identity as a believer in her videos: “In fact, what gave me the courage to raise my voice was Jesus”.
Also known as Tico, this influencer attended a small house of worship since childhood. The pastor and those who congregated there were elderly people. He still identifies as a Christian today. “Being Christ-centred in what I do is my goal”, he told this media outlet.
Together with another young man, he leads El4tico (El Cuartico), a project that began as a series of short videos designed for social media and very popular on Facebook, with tens of thousands of followers on YouTube and more than 93,000 on Instagram. There they publish political analysis content on Cuban and global issues.
The format of this audiovisual space is based on presenting one or more people in a room with a school blackboard in the background, where messages such as “Only Christ Saves” frequently appear.
According to Árbol Invertido, the members of El4tico were kidnapped by the political police in early February 2026, which sparked a huge wave of solidarity.
He was one of the pioneering YouTubers on the island, with almost 10,000 subscribers as of February 2026. On the internet, overcoming the challenges of poor connectivity, he also gained more than 15,000 followers on Facebook.
In 2017, at the age of 14, he gained an audience after interviewing figures from Hispanic Christian art and entertainment such as Manny Montes and Ingrid Rosario. As a digital Renaissance artist, he put together the visual design, did the research and produced the final audiovisual piece. He tackled topics related to Christian youth with ease, theology and theatricality.
During his compulsory military service (SMO) from 2022 to 2023, he was interrogated several times. He was then a youth leader at his local church and continued to show the harsh reality of the island through other vocations such as photography and design.
Calás Navarro was one of the leaders of the Rutas con propósito (Routes with Purpose) initiative, which brought together dozens of teenagers and young people on bicycles to pray at the edges of the capital for the country's economic and spiritual crisis. And in 2022, he taught classes on the meaning of religious freedom. The church was a centre of civic education in the face of totalitarianism.
In September 2023, he was summoned by the police. His family, leaders, friends and brothers in faith accompanied him to the station. His pastor, who baptised him and married him in 2021, left him at the door. After the interrogation, he acknowledged:
“Yes, I fear for my life. But God is in control. God is stronger than the DSE. God is the King of Kings”.
In the following months, he did not remain silent; he denounced the regime, increasingly radically.
She became a citizen influencer after a live broadcast while waiting in a long queue to buy food. It was the beginning of her increasingly regular messages on Facebook to her more than 30,000 followers about the harsh daily reality:
“Let no one dare to talk to me about effort or sacrifice. What we are experiencing is not fair; we are not animals. Dogs in the United States live better... They will have to kill me to shut me up. You bunch of raving fanatics, you incompetents, get out of there. You have already stolen everything you were going to steal, you have already destroyed this country, now leave”.
Her live broadcasts inspired others. Hours after her first viral video, she was fired from her state-owned workplace.
On 28 January 2023, she reported police surveillance near her home. The following month, she was summoned to the Zapata y C police station in Havana because, as a police officer told her, she was inciting the masses.
The challenges of exercising free speech also had an introspective implication:
“And my answer is always the same: I love Our Lord Jesus Christ for who He is. He doesn't need to perform a miracle and take me out of Cuba, he doesn't need to give me luxuries, jewels, yachts and mansions for me to love him. I could mention many attributes of the spiritual world (which does exist) for which to love Our Lord, but as I sometimes fail to understand that dimension, I am grateful for these things”.
Due to his leadership at the communications office of the El Calvario Baptist Church, Espinosa had been summoned by the police and intimidated for his public opposition to the imposition of gender ideology from the Palace of the Revolution.
He is notable for his references to the imaginary country of Abuc, which are an iconic example of the use of humour in X. Through this reference, the young man from Havana was able to address the situation on the island in code.
“The people of Abuc are so lost that they are always complaining about so much deprivation and abuse; however, when the king passes through a neighbourhood, even the most handsome man falls silent. What a sad and illogical place! Will it ever wake up?” he once wrote.
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