Rep. Demings Calls for Cuban Internet Access Funding Surge

Orlando, FL: Today Rep. Val Demings (FL-10) announced that she has called on the Biden Administration to immediately implement grants to fund internet access programs in Cuba using a previously-unidentified funding mechanism that can be used at-will by the administration.

Wrote Rep. Demings, 'after 62 years of deprivation, intimidation, and violence at the hands of the illegitimate communist regime, Cubans understand that opposing the Communist Party of Cuba is not without great risk - including death - but they still marched for human rights and freedom.

She went on, 'With the support of authoritarian allies, the regime also sought to block access to social media and the free and open internet…I respectfully request that the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights, and Labor immediately utilize all appropriated funding for the Open Technology Fund to support Cuban internet freedom.'

Background

Rep. Demings has identified up to $2.5 million per year in unallocated appropriation for 'surges' to internet freedom programs. This funding has been unspent for several years due to the former administration's lack of interest in democracy programs. Rep. Demings believes that this existing funding can and should be immediately used by the administration to support anti-censorship technology and other efforts to allow the Cuban people full and free access to the internet.

Since the protests began, Rep. Demings has praised the Biden Administration's new sanctions on Cuban officials, called for the Biden Administration to move swiftly to stand with the peaceful demonstrators in Cuba, joined Members of Congress in a Cuba hearing earlier this week where Chairman Sires called for President Biden to use the Global Magnitsky Act, and met with multiple Cuban groups in Florida.

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