English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Havana, 24 December 2020 – The San Isidro Movement, born just two years ago, has shaken the political situation in Cuba in the last weeks of 2020 by crossing borders and putting the regime in a bind of incalculable dimensions. At the end of 2018, a group of independent artists who rejected Decree 349 … Continue reading “14ymedio’s Faces of 2020: The Independent Artists of Cuba’s San Isidro Movement”
Cuban artists in front of the Ministry of Culture demanding a meeting with the minister to protest the repression against the San Isidro Movement hunger strikers…. and… as the day wore on…
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 27 November 2020 — Since 11:00 AM this Friday, dozens of artists have gathered in front of the Ministry of Culture in Havana to express their solidarity with the members of the San Isidro Movement, who have been evicted from their headquarters by the security forces. In the absence of the minister, … Continue reading “About 150 Artists Gather in Front of Cuba’s Ministry of Culture to Support the San Isidro Movement”
14ymedio, Havana, 26 November 2020 – The police broke into the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement (MSI) in Old Havana on Thursday night and arrested the 14 activists who were inside the building, as confirmed to 14ymedio by neighbors and relatives of the detainees. Several police patrols and ambulances participated in the operation. “I passed near … Continue reading “Police Break into the Headquarters of Cuba’s San Isidro Movement and Arrest the Activists”
14ymedio, Havana, 18 November 2020 — A total of nine people, including artists, activists and independent journalists, have been on hunger strike since Wednesday afternoon at the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement (MSI) in Havana to demand the freedom of Denis Solís. The strikers are Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, Esteban Rodríguez, Maykel Castillo, Humberto Mena, … Continue reading “Nine Activists of the San Isidro Movement, on Hunger Strike for the Freedom of Denis Solis”
14ymedio, Havana, 20 November 2020 — A police cordon around the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement, in Old Havana, has blocked pedestrians since since last Monday. State Security arrests anyone who tries to reach the place, where seven activists remain confined in protest of the sentence of eight months in prison for the rebellious rapper Denis Solís. … Continue reading “Cuban State Security Continues to Harass the San Isidro Movement”
14ymedio, Havana, 17 June 2020 — Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara has been released after spending the entire day on Wednesday being held in the Villa Marista detention center. The artist had been arrested in the morning, when he went to file a complaint about the police mistreatment that he and rapper Maykel Castillo suffered last … Continue reading “Members of Cuba’s San Isidro Movement Arrested After Delivering Complaint of Police Mistreatment”
14ymedio, Jorge Hernández Fonseca, Havana, 27 December 2020 — The abolition of the Cuba’s dual currency system is, as we all know, essential to the development of a healthy economy on island. It is a reform the Communist nomenklatura has said it will adopt but which it is reluctant to undertake for fear of losing the … Continue reading “The Perfect Storm: San Isidro and Currency Unification”
14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, Havana, 26 November 2020 — The arrest of a rapper has led to a hunger strike being waged by several activists, members of a group known as the San Isidro Movement. What began as a meeting of friends showing solidarity and demanding the release of Denis Solís has led to an … Continue reading “The Singularity of San Isidro”
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 11 October 2020 — On October 10, a group of young Cuban activists and artists who identify as the San Isidro Movement attempted a civic action that included a concert and the presentation of posters that alluded to the need for changes in Cuba. Starting the day before, the political police made … Continue reading “Tenth of October: The Cry of San Isidro”
14ymedio, Havana, January 13, 2021 — The Gabo Foundation has gotten another scolding from the Cuban government for including three independent journalists in the list of finalists for its annual award. The relationship between the two parties has all but collapsed since the Foundation for a New Ibero-American Journalism, an organization founded by García Márquez in Cartagena, Colombia, … Continue reading “Cubadebate Criticizes Friends at the Gabo Foundation for Supporting the Independent Press”
14ymedio, Havana | 15 January 2021 – On Thursday, the artist Tania Bruguera delivered a complaint against the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT) for the content of a broadcast on Wednesday, in which “they distorted, defamed and created negative states of opinion” about her. “They misrepresented my work, they misrepresented who I am, what my … Continue reading “Artist Tania Bruguera Files Defamation Complaint Against Cuban Television”
14ymedio, Ariel Hidalgo/Elizardo Sanchez SantaCruz, 1 January 2020 — After almost forty years of organized civic struggle of the dissident movement in Cuba, the survivors of the half dozen political prisoners who began that struggle in 1983 call for a dispassionate reflection on the general situation of the country and the opportunities of the present … Continue reading “Ten Proposals for Change in Cuba”
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 31 December 2020 — What happened in Cuba throughout this year can be related in a fragmentary way through a chronology, but the most important did not begin in January 2020, but on Wednesday, September 11, 2019, when the President of the Republic, to calm the citizenry, advised that on the … Continue reading “In 2020 the Cuban Regime Suffered its First Defeats”
14ymedio, Lorey Saman, Mexico, 26 December 2020 — The voices of Cuban priests have made themselves heard with great force in recent months. This December 24, as Christmas was being celebrated, Deacon Maikel Gómez, from the Parish of San Juan Bosco, in Havana, gave a homily in which he reflected on freedom within the Island. … Continue reading “Cuban Priest Censures Leaders Who ‘Cling to Outdated Ideas, Already Obsolete’”
