In Cuba, there's little change two years after historic protests

Two years after historic protests against the communist-run government rocked Cuba, not much has changed.

The huge street protests — often referred to on social media as 11J, after the date in Spanish, 11 de Julio — led to a harsh crackdown and the arrest of over 1,500 protesters. Around 682 remain imprisoned, according to the human rights group Justicia 11J. Cuba’s government puts the number significantly lower, at 488.

Some of Cuba’s leading activists remain behind bars. Ahead of the second anniversary, the Miami Herald published a letter written by the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, 34, titled “Cuba’s authorities have stolen my youth just for speaking my mind,” detailing the harsh prison conditions he says he has been subjected to.

“Today every young Cuban is a political prisoner. A censored artist. An exile inside and outside Cuba,” wrote Alcántara. “Even if you’re an accomplice of the system, you will inevitably be crushed like the others, because to be young is to be daring and reckless, eager to bring change to the world. It means fighting for love, dreams and utopia. But these qualities are considered crimes in Cuba, and that condemns us all to martyrdom.”

Alcántara began a hunger and thirst strike on June 6, and no one has heard from him since, according to Claudia Genlui, a Cuban activist and friend of Alcántara's.

Manuel Cuesta Morúa, a leader of the Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba, a dissident group, told NBC News that after the protests of July 11, 2021, there was a change in the country with a merging of the calls for better economic conditions and more freedom.

“After July 11 there was a unification of the demands for a better life with the demands of liberty,” Cuesta Morúa said. “And I think that will remain forever in Cuban society.”

“I think the government is trying to teach a lesson because freeing prisoners immediately could be interpreted, in the government’s view, as a weakness,” said Morúa.

There have been sporadic protests in isolated areas throughout the island since July 11, 2021, but nothing in comparison to the demonstrations that took place two summers ago.

Other leading dissidents, like Jose Daniel Ferrer and Félix Navarro, remain in prison, as well.

Guillermo “Coco” Fariñas Hernández, who won the prestigious Andrei Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2010, has been on a hunger strike in his home since June 26 to protest against the government and for the release of political prisoners.

The U.S., the European Union, the Vatican, and human rights organizations, inside and outside Cuba, have called for the release of all political prisoners.

The dire economic conditions on the island that led many to protest two years ago, including inflation and shortages in food, medicine, power and gasoline, haven’t changed. Over 340,000 Cubans have come to the U.S. through the U.S.-Mexico border since the 2022 fiscal year began. Prominent activists have fled as well, saying they were forced to choose between prison or exile.

Cuba's government lifted a ban on private companies in June 2021 that had been in place since the 1959 revolution. So far, around 7,000 companies have opened. They now account for 14% of the people employed in Cuba.

An editorial in the state-run newspaper, Granma, accused the U.S. government of being behind the demonstrations. They said the U.S. incited the protests by providing funds to break the law, including robbery and assault.

“The United States has a direct responsibility for the disturbances of July 11 and 12, 2021," the editorial said.

The U.S. denies the claims.

“As the entire world knows, the Cuban people protested for themselves,” a State Department spokesperson told NBC News.

“As respected NGOs continue to report and document, the regime continues to violently repress virtually any kind of peaceful public dissent and detains, harasses, and threatens families of detained protesters who dare speak publicly about their detained family members," the spokesperson said in an email statement.

The Cuban government did not respond to a request for comment.

After then-President Donald Trump tightened the screws on the decades-old embargo, the Biden administration did ease some sanctions on travel and remittances to the island. But relations between the U.S. and Cuba remain strained, with Cuba blaming existing U.S. sanctions for most of its economic problems.

Meanwhile, Cuba has signed multiple deals with Russia to boost sugar and rum output, supply wheat and crude oil, and overhaul crumbling tourist facilities. The White House recently said that China was going to build an eavesdropping facility in Cuba.

In Miami, the heart of the Cuban exile community, a group of Republican and Democratic members of Congress marked the anniversary of the protests by calling for tougher sanctions against Cuba’s government, citing strengthening ties with Russia and China.

House Foreign Affairs Committee Chairman Michael McCaul, R-Texas, led a discussion that also included activists.

In Hialeah, a working-class suburb, a ceremony was held to name a portion of a street after "Patria y Vida" ("Homeland and Life"), a protest song written by a group of Cuban musicians that became a symbol of the demonstrations against the Cuban government. One of the musicians, Maykel Castillo, remains in prison.

Morúa says his dissident group is opting to pressure the Cuban government for changes in a way that is legal and constitutional.

“I think it's the only present alternative to reach these changes, of course with international visibility and backing," he said.

Carmen Sesin reported from Miami, and Orlando Matos reported from Havana.

This article was originally published on NBCNews.com