A series of internet outages has coincided with Cuba’s largest protests in 30 years as hundreds took to the streets in cities around the country on Sunday chanting anti-government slogans and voicing their discontent at severe food and medicine shortages. 

Videos posted to social media by protesters on Sunday have shown hundreds of people marching through Havana and elsewhere in anti-government demonstrations sparked by a worsening economic crisis. Food and medicine shortages, rising prices and Covid restrictions have seen ordinary Cubans unable to work in the island nation’s tourism industry and led to lengthy queues for basic food items. 

One video uploaded to Twitter showed protesters overturning a police car in Cardenas, 90 miles from Havana. 

Recently, shutting down the internet has become the repressive tool of choice for authoritarian governments. In countries throughout Africa, popular elections have occasioned nationwide internet closures. Russia has broadly cracked down on internet freedoms in tandem with attacks on the media. And since the internet was introduced in the country, the Chinese government has used its vast powers to control its digital spaces and censure online speech.