Panfilo: Cuba's "YouTube rebel"

The above video shows Juan Carlos González Marcos, now better known as “Pánfilo,” interrupting an interview on the streets of Havana. His loud comments regarding the tremendous need in Cuba for “jama”—the slang Cuban word for food—stuck with many viewers when the video reached YouTube a few months ago, and the clip spread quickly on that site as well as in Miami newscasts, magazine covers, and several websites that ran his words as a lead story.

González was arrested in August by the Cuban police. He has now been sentenced to two years in prison for “precriminal social endangerment,” an ambiguous charge that has been in use since the 1960s in Cuba.

Social activists are rallying around the issue. Already one organization advocating González’s release has sprung up; Jama y Libertad has collected over 1,000 signatures (as of 12:30 AM Eastern Time on 09/09/09) for the cause.

The man himself is no activist. Pánfilo is one of many who liked to have drinks in the park where the video was shot, and he was drunk in this instance and presumably speaking his mind. In that context it is particularly odd that he has been put in jail for his comments, as one publicist for the Jama y Libertad organization pointed out: “This incident… came as a surprise because the protagonist was not a political dissident nor a person trying to defend a position or gain popularity.”

The arrest and two-year sentence are certainly difficult to defend.