14ymedio – Page 274 – Translating Cuba

Cuban Police Blackmails Mothers by Detaining their Children if They Go Out on the Street

Women “are the driving force behind the demonstrations, since they are victims of a totalitarian government,” say the Ladies in White. (14yMedio)

EFE/14ymedio, Havana, 4 August 2021 — Institutional neglect and violence are two scourges that many Cuban women suffer, but not only this, they also cry out for democracy, freedom and human rights. It is something that is increasingly seen in citizen protests, as several organizations have accredited.

“When women in Cuba protest the social conditions they are suffering, they are also victims of institutional violence”, Elena Larrinaga, executive director of Red Femenina de Cuba [Cuban Women’s Network] points out to Efe in Madrid, which promotes the role of women as “agent of change” in the “peaceful” demonstrations in Cuba this past July 11^th.

Cuba’s mentality continues to be “anchored in the past”, laments Larrinaga; suffering gender-based violence in the family is understood “as a scourge carried by all members, so it is not usually something that is discussed openly”.

According to legislative provisions, gender violence will be considered a crime starting in 2028, so Cuba is “the only country in the Western Hemisphere where it’s not criminalized,” she explains. Until then, the activist asserts, some 400 women will have died.

So far this year, at least 26 women have died violently at the hands of continue reading

their partners, according to this network, and during 2020 there were about 30, according to the #YoSíTeCreoCuba [I do believe you, Cuba] platform and Alas Tensas [Tense Wings] magazine.

The last ones, Daniela Cintra Martín, 23, and her mother, Liena Martín, 42, died on July 25^th in a rural community of Villa Clara at the hands of Daniela’s former partner.

The threats they tell young people are: “be careful what you do, remember that this is going to have an impact on your family”. They don’t realize that families no longer care about repression

“Women have been working in Cuba for a long time to empower females in a civic way, and this movement has grown and will continue to do so,” Marthadela Tamayo, vice president of the Council for the Transition in Cuba, tells Efe from Cuba.

Women “are the driving force behind the demonstrations, since they are victims of a totalitarian government that does not take into account the physical, psychological and mistreatment they suffer”, María Cristina Labrada, a member of the Ladies in White, a pioneer group in the peaceful struggle for freedom, also denounces from Cuba.

Women are now the “instigators” of this new wave for freedom. “It was demonstrated in San Antonio de los Baños, when they got up to shout “It’s over, we want freedom and democracy!'” Tania García, a human rights defender, told the Spanish agency from Havana.

After the protests that arose on the island there is an “irreversible” social change, she points out. “They are no longer a minority of women opposed to the Cuban government, there aren’t that many subjected to the current Cuban system, these demonstrations are helping many realize that rights have been taken away from us and we must recover them”, says García.

At a high price, that is: “With great pain, mothers are seeing how their children, who have come out peacefully to defend something legitimate, freedom, are jailed in prisons and their whereabouts are not known”, says Larrinaga.

Various independent organizations have documented more than 700 detainees since the July 11^th protests, including minors and missing persons, with the country plunged into a serious economic and health crisis due to the Covid-19 epidemic.

One of the ways that the Cuban government has to exert “pressure” on women is through their children, these activists denounce.

“The threats they make against young people are: “be careful what you do, remember that this is going to have an impact on your family. They don’t realize that families no longer care about repression”, because in Cuba “fear has changed sides,” says Larrinaga.

In addition to threatening the young children of the women who come out to demonstrate, they also take them from their homes. “They knock on the door, take the children, mothers cry and scream and they carry them away”, she denounces.

María Cristina Labrada denounces the same: “In schools, children are forced to repeat regime-prepared slogans to indoctrinate them. Mothers who refuse to allow their children to repeat them are judged and threatened with taking their children from them.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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Two Cuban Judokas Escape from the Official Delegation During a Stopover in Madrid

Nahomys Acosta during a match at the 2018 Youth Olympic Games. (Juventud Rebelde)

14ymedio, Havana, August 21, 2021 – Cuban judokas Ayumi Leyva and Nahomys Acosta left the island’s delegation during a stopover in Madrid, Spain. The athletes were going to participate in the qualifier for the Junior Pan American Games in Cali, Colombia, which took place on August 14 in the same city, but they never made it to the event.

As reported on Tuesday by the official site JIT, Leyva and Acosta were together with 12 other athletes who continued to Colombia but were withdrawn from the tournament after seven of them tested positive for covid-19.

The seven men and five women suspended from the contest “had to win their spots in the last of the seven events with scores for the ladder,” although JIT says that at least two “women are pending access by ranking.”

Due to pandemic-related flight restrictions, many athletes from the Island who are going to compete in tournaments in Latin America must first travel to Madrid and from there take a plane to a nation in continue reading

Central America or South America.

At the end of June, the athlete Raudelis Guerra also abandoned the Island’s basketball delegation in Spain, on the way to the qualifying tournament for the World Cup, which took place in El Salvador.

Guerra escaped from the entourage at the same Madrid-Barajas Airport, where part of the national team made a stopover before continuing to the Central American country.

“I left the delegation for a very, very personal reason. Maybe many don’t know what it is and those people will judge without knowing. But I know, and my family will understand me,” the Guantanamamian told Play-Off Magazine shortly after.

About a month earlier there were other defections by Cuban athletes and assistants. Lázaro Blanco, a pitcher for the national team that participated in the Pre-Olympic Baseball Tournament of the Americas held in Florida, decided to stay in Miami on June 4 and not return to Saltillo, Mexico, where he had a contract with a local team.

“The important thing is that I feel good about the decision I’ve made, a new life that I’m going to start right now. I am very happy to be here,” said Blanco shortly after his decision was known.

Days earlier, César Prieto, one of the promising players, had left his teammates just hours after landing in Florida. A few days later, Jorge Sile Figueroa, a psychologist for the baseball team, also decided to leave the delegation and stay in the United States.

Translated by Tomás A.

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Neither Candy Nor Pampers for the Children of Santiago de Cuba

The parents say that, faced with the situation, they are forced to buy everything they need from resellers “at exorbitant prices.” (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 17 August 2021 — More than 600 mothers and fathers of Santiago de Cuba have repudiated the exclusive sale in foreign currency of most of the products they need to make up the basic supplies for their babies. In a letter delivered this Monday to the authorities of the Government and the Communist Party of Cuba, the signers explain that they depend on their salaries in pesos and do not have access to freely convertible currency (MLC).

“The letter was written because they are now selling pampers in MLC,” (stores that only take foreign currency) one of the mothers from Santiago who signed the document tells 14ymedio; she says this was “the last straw.”

“It seems that the buzz came to the authorities and then they put some diapers for sale in national currency but most of them are still being sold in foreign currency,” she adds.

The letter, an initiative of the members of the Facebook group “Everything for babies” in Santiago de Cuba, denounces that currently “all cleaning products, hygiene, jams, even clothing and footwear” are sold in foreign currency, so they propose “that products such as pampers, wet wipes, continue reading

soaps, bath gel also be available in stores in national currency,” among other products.

The parents claim that, faced with the situation, they are forced to buy everything they need from resellers “at exorbitant prices” and that they do so with their children in mind: “our children do not understand the economic crisis, pandemic or problems.”

Santiago journalist and audiovisual producer Carlos Melián tells this newspaper that a few weeks ago he made a walk through the city in search of diapers: “A few months ago all the stores were full of disposable diapers and water, but lately they are all closed and when I have gone out to look for them I have not found any or they are available only in MLC [foreign currency].”

“Right now the fundamental problem is that to buying anything here in the MLC stores is difficult because they are full of coleros [people who stand in line for others] and there is a dawn [when one must get in line] and I am afraid of catching Covid,” explains Melián, the father of a one-and-a-half-year old. “What I decided was to wash the diapers by hand. It depresses me a lot to stand in those lines and expose myself to the disease, I prefer to do the wash every night.”

The supply of the product is also very irregular in Havana, says Marieta, mother of a two-month-old boy and a girl of 18-months, speaking tothis newspaper. “Sometimes I get some for the girl but not for the smallest baby because they do not sell all the sizes,” she explains. “People buy the product in foreign currency stores and then resell it. On the street a package for newborns can go up to 500 pesos.”

“Those who have families abroad who can buy them in digital stores are saved, because they can be found there, but you have to pay in dollars and from abroad,” he says. In several digital portals consulted by 14ymedio, the price of 36 baby diapers ranged between 15 and 20 dollars, but they are not sold for all stages there either.

Many mothers have returned to the custom of cloth diapers, but the option complicates the day-to-day with continuous washing and the high consumption of detergent. “The few disposables that I get I use on some days of the week but most of the time I have them on cloth, it is a slavery because the washing never ends,” adds Marieta.

“The ones that we buy for now, which are the Premium Plus, are made here in Cuba, in Mariel, they cost 275 pesos but you can only buy two per person,” says a couple from the Cuban capital with a 10-month-old baby. “We buy the Premium because they are better, the difference is noticeable, in reality there always is, but there is a limitation on the quantity.”

Added to the instability in the sale of the pampers are other concerns of the Santiago parents. In their letter they propose that it be considered to include “all the products in the supply book, in the basket or sell them as modules.” They point out that “it is necessary to guarantee the sale of food for children from six months of age” upon presentation of the minor’s card and at the price of the State.

“An adult may be able to stop eating one day (which is not ideal because we must have our body fed to raise, fight for our children, work), but a child needs proteins, meats, food, vegetables for their growth and proper development, but with such high prices,” it becomes very difficult to feed babies, they explain.

They also demand that “the cycle of delivery of milk in the warehouses” be complied with, that medicines be “commercialized in a controlled manner,” the sale of household electrical equipment such as fans and mixers, and that the prices of food be reviewed “because they are in the clouds.”

They complained about the exclusive sale of sweets in MLC: “Beyond what can be explained to them, it is frustrating, in these times of confinement, that a child asks you for a lollipop, jams, sweets, telling you that they are hungry but that they don’t want food and you don’t have to give him, not being able to please him with such basic things. “

At the end of the document they made it clear that they will continue to insist on finding solutions in “any instance.”

“When it comes to a child there are no limits, there are no barriers, we stop living ourselves, to live for them.”

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‘It is Torture to Intubate Patients Without Sedating Them, As is Being Done in Cuba Now’

“All this about the shortage of sedatives is terrible, very worrying,” denounces a Cuban doctor. (Twitter / @ DiazCanelB)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 22 August 2021 — “Imagine your mouth being forced open to shove a tube down your throat and all this without a sedative.” The Cuban doctor asks to keep his name in reserve before telling 14ymedio about his traumatic experience with Covid-19 patients in collapsed hospitals, without oxygen, without medicines for patients and without means of protection for healthcare personnel.

“It is torture, and the patient can even die in this whole process because if intubation is complicated, he dies from hypoxia,” adds this doctor who works in a hospital in Havana.

It is not an isolated case, but rather several testimonies collected by this newspaper in recent days, both in Havana and in the provinces. In the absence of the usual sedatives in Cuba, such as midazolam, propofol, atracurium or pancuronium, doctors must make very difficult decisions when connecting a patient in serious condition to an artificial respirator through intubation.

“All this about the shortage of sedatives is terrible, very worrying. There are many ventilated patients now in the country and it is an ethically very complex situation. You are faced with the dilemma of either I intubate him to try to save him or I do not intubate him and he dies,” explains continue reading

a doctor from Cienfuegos, who speaks of “chaos” in the therapy rooms between the lack of oxygen and medicines.

“There are patients who are so bad that they put up only a minimal resistance but there are others who do not, there are others who have to suffer it, open their mouths, sometimes there are even broken teeth, sometimes they survive, sometimes not,” laments another doctor from Havana, very affected by this situation.

“When you put the patient on the ventilator without sedation, they are tied to the ventilator and there is a ventilatory discomfort that causes the patient’s ventilatory rate to go one way and the ventilator the other.” He adds that “if the patient were sedated, the frequency of the patient would be the same as that of the ventilator and better breathing can be achieved because otherwise the objective, which is to ventilate the patient well, is not achieved.”

The nightmare of testing positive for covid and “having to enter a hospital because your symptoms worsen” can begin “from the moment you call an ambulance and it does not appear,” Eloisa, a young woman who survived covid after spending 21 days in a therapy room.

“When you think the worst has happened and you are already in an intensive care room, you realize that the nightmare is not over, that it is just beginning. The dead passed through the corridor every half hour and that was terrifying, luckily for me I did not have to be intubated because I responded well but my family had to bring everything, even the oximeter to measure the oxygen saturation in the blood because there were none in the hospital,”he complains.

“Those rooms are a total disaster, the doctors work with all their strength but with very few resources and with the minimum means of protection. Some days I saw how the doctors had to deal with oxygen blackouts of up to two hours,” adds the young man.

In the midst of the oxygen crisis in almost all the country’s hospitals the local Cienfuegos press said that 20 “concentrators had arrived in the province “to support the fight against the pandemic.”

Dr. Duniesky González Rodríguez, director of the Provincial Medical Supplies Company in that province, explained that they come from Mexico and that “flights from China are being expected in the next few hours” with more equipment of this type. “You know the real situation that the province has today, not only with the high incidence of covid cases but with the lack of oxygen,” he added.

As reported this Saturday by the official press, in the last two days a “more stable” supply of oxygen has been achieved for the hospitals of the capital, an improvement that allows “ensuring continued coverage for the almost 500 admissions that require it; 128 of them are treated with artificial ventilation in intensive care units and 369 in general wards.”

The report detailed that health care institutions such as Freyre de Andrade, known as Emergency, and Joaquín Albarrán, located on Avenida 26, “had experienced a tense situation in the coverage” of oxygen and that for that reason they were “especially benefited with a group of containers that ensure the existence of this product for 8 to 10 days.”

Dr. Emilio Delgado Iznaga, provincial director of Health, assured this Saturday during a meeting with the authorities of Havana, that “the delivery of medicinal oxygen and compressed air” to the 82 polyclinics in the capital was resumed, “to attend to the patients with acute respiratory infections or other illnesses that need this drug.” The official’s statement reaffirms the controversial use of compressed air as a substitute for medicinal oxygen, which has generated so much criticism.

Delgado Iznaga also announced that this Saturday the province received 95 oxygen concentrators “for home distribution,” which, together with another 10, will be able to “serve the hundred convalescents who need it daily in their homes.”

Recently dozens of Cuban doctors denounced through videos shared on social networks, the health collapse that the country is experiencing and demanded supplies they need to carry out their work. They also protested against the criticism of the sector launched by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero.

“Our patients need help,” said angiology and vascular surgery resident Julio C. Hernández. “We also need help, we do not want more people to die,” adds the doctor in his brief complaint dated August 16.

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Cuba’s Frantic Race for Oxygen

In recent days, complaints from patients and relatives have grown warning of lack of oxygen. (ACN)

14ymedio, Mexico/Madrid, 20 August 2021 — They come with four or five tanks, people must be dying for lack of oxygen,” a young man from Sancti Spíritus says, seeing a horse drawn cart asking for clearance for a truck loaded with a few cylinders. The same hubbub, he says, happened earlier this week, when a shipment of medical oxygen was being transferred from the airport.

“Cienfuegos Hospital continues to have a deficit of oxygen. The helicopters of the Cuban Television Primetime News is symbolic for the need there,” a doctor in the province told 14ymedio on Thursday. The physician was referring to the images that flood the official media that illustrate the transfer of cylinders in military aircraft and trucks.

Fifty oxygen concentrators donated by the Government of China should arrive in Havana by air over the weekend. This Thursday, the Telesur correspondent in Beijing echoed the tweet of a user who announced it, accompanied by two images in which the cargo piled up at the airport can be seen. The journalist recalls that recently 30 ventilators also left for the island from the Asian country, which together with Russia is becoming the largest partner of Havana after the Venezuelan collapse.

The Russians themselves came to the aid of the Cuban authorities on Sunday to set up a plant that was continue reading

added to the two that the Cuban Army already had at the San Antonio de los Baños Air Base. The Revolutionary Armed Forces (FAR) have made their factories available to the Ministry of Industries to support the growing demand amid the peak of the covid-19 pandemic. But nothing is enough.

The complaints of patients and relatives warning of lack of oxygen, with alarming crises in provinces such as Ciego de Ávila, Villa Clara, Camagüey, Cienfuegos and Holguín, led to a propaganda marathon by the authorities on the distribution of medicinal oxygen on the island.

The amount of oxygen a covid patient needs is impossible to determine: it depends on their condition and the time required for assistance, which can be days or months. But the needs of countries where the explosion of the pandemic arrived earlier give an idea of the quantities required. In Spain, the largest manufacturer of this product explained in April 2020 (when deaths in the country were close to a thousand a day) that the demand had multiplied by four, by seven in Madrid (the most affected region) and, in the worst days, by ten.

As of last March, according to the State newspaper Granma, Gases Industriales Company, OxiCuba, located in the capital had last March, according to Granma, “the capacity to generate more production than that demanded by the Health system,” while in Santiago de Cuba it produced only 5% of the national demand on that date and covered the orders of the eastern region.

The official newspaper did not say how much medical oxygen the Cuban health system demanded, but according to data from the National Office of Statistics and Information (Onei), Cuba produced 20,726.8 million cubic meters in 2020, well below the 31,612 million of 2015, which gives an idea of the level of shortages that the country is suffering with a pandemic that has increased demand exponentially.

In the midst of the biggest wave of the pandemic, the worst news came: the breakage of a piece at the Havana plant, which kicked off this obstacle course to achieve one of the most necessary treatments in this context and whose current production is unknown.

Gases Industriales Santiago produces 930 cylinders a day, which it distributes mainly to the province’s health system, Granma and Guantánamo, but in recent days at least Holguín and Las Tunas have joined. To this production are added the 360 cylinders every 24 hours in charge of the military factories and the Russian plant installed at the San Antonio de los Baños Air Base.

In Las Tunas, the Stainless Steel Company produces barely 1,300 to 1,500 liters per day and in Holguín the support of the Gas Processing Complex of the military region was added, which according to a Cuban television report contributes about “seven cylinders” per hour (168 daily).

In Camagüey, in addition to the 250 medical oxygen cylinders that the territory’s business unit made last February, another 280 reinforcement units are added, which are “distributed in the 13 hospital centers of Camagüey, in addition to some thirty polyclinics in all municipalities,” according to a report in Prensa Latina published this Tuesday.

With the doubt about how many liters or cubic meters are produced per day and how many are being consumed on average, the official press has tried to calm a population desperate for gas, but when it has not fallen in the propaganda, it has contributed to sowing confusion.

A Public Health director, quoted by the Havana Tribune , admitted this Wednesday that in recent months compressed air had been used as a substitute for medicinal oxygen, which “also reported a deficit in recent days.”

Directors of Gases Industriales Santiago told the Cuban News Agency that “they produce compressed air, which allows saving medicinal oxygen, with problems in its coverage” and national television published Wednesday that the Marlin Azulmar Navy of Ciego de Ávila was bottling compressed air used for scuba tanks.

The information was also shared on the Facebook page of Televisión Avileña and withdrawn shortly after panic spread among some users over the use of this gas in patients with covid.

“The 40% oxygen reached with this filling is insufficient for serious and critical patients, but it is necessary and sufficient for those who arrive at a duty station with respiratory deficit because it is twice what we normally breathe in the atmosphere. It is a way to stabilize the patient and then give them the necessary treatment,” Televisión Avileña responded to several users, although fear is still in the environment.

Unlike other products that are easily available in the informal market, medicinal oxygen is scarce in illegal networks and sellers only market with highly trusted contacts, fearing strict police surveillance over that product. Its size and the need to have its own cylinder to carry out these clandestine operations make it even more difficult to purchase through this route.

A source from the Institute of Neurology and Neurosurgery confirmed to this newspaper that, even with the gas deficit in recent days, some cylinders continue to go to the black market. Between Tuesday and Wednesday of this week, there were gaps in the medical center allocation, the source said. “When the truck arrived with the cylinders, it did not bring the amount that was stated in the documents. Apparently they tried to sneak the missing one to the person in charge at the hospital, but they could not and had to leave without unloading the oxygen.”

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Rapper ‘El Radikal’ Was Released on Bail After Being Arrested on July 11

‘El Radikal’ is investigated by the military prosecutor. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 21 August 2021 — Cuban rapper Richard Adrián Zamora Brito, El Radikal, was released on bail this Friday. This was published on his Facebook profile by his colleague Osvaldo Navarro Veloz, from the Di.Verso community project, of which Zamora is also a collaborator.

“After 40 days in prison, Richard Zamora is on his way home. They released him on bail. We continue to fight for freedom and due process for those incarcerated in Cuba. We will soon have new updates on Richard’s case,” Navarro wrote, another important voice of rebellious rap and member of the Citizens Committee for Racial Integration (CIR).

Navarro told 14ymedio that Zamora was detained in the Combinado del Sur prison after being arrested by police and State Security agents at his home in the middle of the night in Colón, Matanzas, the day after participating in the July 11 protests. (11J).

His family members then requested a ’change of measure’, but it was denied, and they denounced that they were not allowed to visit him or pass on the medications that the musician needs for a treatment “of nerves and stomach problems.” continue reading

The family was never informed that in prison the artist was infected with covid-19, a fact that was only learned thanks to detainees who were released. They also did not have access to Zamora’s file nor did they know the charges against him.

Navarro explained that El Radikal was being investigated by the military prosecutor’s office and that a criminal investigator had told the family “verbally” that he was accused of “public disorder,” “robbery with force” and “disturbances.” Others of those arrested for these 11J protests, such as Eduardo Manuel Báez, 22, are also being charged for those offenses.

Báez’s father told this newspaper that “since the MLC stores* belong to the army” then “it is the military prosecutor’s office that is making the accusations” and added that they have not even allowed him to hire a lawyer for his son.

Rapper Randy Arteaga is still in prison, having also been arrested on July 11 in front of the Santa Clara Palace of Justice. “Witnesses, and the video of his arrest, indicate that he suffered physical violence at the time of his arrest,” said Osvaldo Navarro.

The list of detainees and disappeared, drawn up by a group of volunteers in collaboration with the Cubalex Legal Information Center, counts 391 protesters still in prison, four of them in “forced disappearance.”

*Translator’s note: ’MLC stores’ are stores that only accept payment in foreign currencies (MLC).

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Cuban President Diaz-Canel Misinforms, Comparing Cuba’s Decree-Law 35 with European Legislation

Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel, compares a European communication of recommendations with his decree. (EFE / ACN / Ariel Ley Royero / File)

14ymedio, Havana, 19 August 2021 — The Government is up in arms against the criticism raised by Decree-Law 35, which is intended to penalize false news in Cuba, its dissemination and the publication of “offensive messages or defamations that harm the prestige of the country”. The slogan now is to allege that there are countries with similar norms, but for the comparison they have chosen the wrong example.

Miguel Díaz-Canel has retweeted a user’s message stating, “They brand the Decree 35 in Cuba as an ’attack on human rights’, for things that operate in practically all countries: the fight against disinformation and cyberbullies. Its equivalent, the Action Plan against Disinformation has existed in the European Union since 2018.”

The president introduced the tweet with the message: “Sovereign Cuba says it, and honest experts from all over the world confirm it: our Legal Decree 35 is against disinformation and cyber-lying.”

The “expert” is Carlos González Penalva, who defines himself as a “stoic communist, philosophical rationalist” and head of Communication of the United Left in Gijón (Asturias). Far from being an expert in the field, the curriculum of Díaz-Canel’s continue reading

referent indicates that he began his studies in philosophy. The rest are from courses and congresses, most of them events in Cuba.

But the problem is not the source, but the content. González cites the Action Plan Against Disinformation that has existed in the European Union since 2018 as “equivalent,” but any resemblance between the two is purely coincidental.

The plan was approved on the occasion of the 2019 elections to the European Parliament and the holding of up to 50 electoral processes of different ranks in the member states. According to the text, its fundamental objective is to prevent interference by other countries in these and future elections, and it cites Russia, having documented its attempted interference on previous occasions.

“According to the EU Hybrid Fusion Cell, disinformation by the Russian Federation22 poses the greatest threat to the EU. It is systematic, well-resourced, and on a different scale to other countries,” it quotes in the text.

In the text, the EU urges the Member States to strengthen their national legislation to the same end and to link up to the European system. As far as disinformation is concerned, the plan foresees that the platforms ensure the control of political advertising, close false accounts and detect fake bots in order to eliminate them.

The text re-emphasizes that the recommendations “are part of a package of measures designed to ensure free and fair European elections (…). The work of an independent media is essential to the functioning of a democratic society,” it adds.

Finally, the document calls on the States to promote literacy in disinformation to the general public, as well as the creation of expert bodies in this field. In no case does it have, as in the Cuban decree, the rank of law nor, therefore, the capacity to sanction. Therefore, it does not work as an example.

In previous days, Cuban authorities have cited other European examples, such as that of France. The French law was born specifically from the EU Plan and was approved in 2018 with this intended purpose: to curb the dissemination of false information.

It was very controversial in their country among the opposition and press associations, which denounced the censorship mechanism that could involve the right to be able to remove “any assertion or imputation of an inaccurate or misleading fact”. The law provides for penalties of up to one year’s imprisonment in the most serious cases (cyberterrorism), but its approval required agreement on an amendment specifying that in order to take serious measures, such as blocking a web page, it must be considered proven that it was done “deliberately” and not only “in bad faith.”

Moreover, before reaching this point, the judge must determine, within a period of 48 hours, whether such false information has been disseminated “artificially or automatically” and “massively.” The intervention of a judge is decisive in the French regulation as well as in the German one (also cited by the Cuban authorities) and the Spanish one, which has not yet been approved due to the parliamentary traffic jam resulting from the pandemic. All these countries have separation of powers and the judiciary acts independently of the government.

The clearest example of this is that the French government itself was affected by its law. The Executive launched a campaign through Twitter to urge the population to exercise their right to vote in the European elections, which was deflated when the social network penalized it with its algorithm, considering that it was massive electoral propaganda lacking transparency (neither the funds nor the sender had been credited).

The governments of European countries that have tried to adopt rules following EU guidelines have all been the target of criticism from the opposition, because the fear of abuse exists and, in fact, there are cases in which people have been brought to trial for offenses expressed on social networks. But most of them are solved with an administrative fine and always depend on the courts, outside the governments.

The Cuban government has not yet specified the sanctions that will result from the violation of the rules of Legal Decree 35, but it has made a bad start by trying to match European legislation. In Latin America there are also laws against disinformation in several countries which imply fines, imprisonment and censorship, from the most obvious cases such as Nicaragua or Venezuela, to others such as Chile, which impose prison sentences for the “dissemination of false news that disturb the social order or cause panic in the population.” But Cuban authorities have not chosen to make that comparison.

Translated by: Hombre de Paz

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Official Data on Covid Deaths in Cuba are ‘Imprecise’ Admits the Minister of Health

A doctor from Cienfuegos told ’14ymedio’ that 36 deaths occurred in his hospital, but only four cases had a positive test. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 19 August 2021 — Chaos in hospitals, in cemeteries and, now, in the numbers of deaths from covid-19 in Cuba. The Minister of Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda, has admitted that the official data are “imprecise” in statements this Wednesday to Invasor, the provincial newspaper of Ciego de Ávila. The high official recognizes that the statistics only enter the deceased who have a positive PCR at the time of death and this is not always carried out or, simply, the result does not arrive in time.

On the other hand, the same article points out, in the Antonio Luaces hospital those who have tested positive in the rapid test or have symptoms compatible with the disease are being reported as deceased by coronavirus, in addition to those who have died from after effects after negative test results.

According to the official gazette, with the inclusion of these cases, the statistics “rise,” although the testimony rather adds confusion to being admitted from a hospital center that does not follow the Ministry’s protocol, which sows doubt about how deaths are accounted for in each center.

This Tuesday, a doctor from Cienfuego s told 14ymedio that 36 deaths occurred in his hospital, but only four cases had a positive test, so the official notification was four.

Last week, complaints also came from Guantánamo, where Ihosvany Fernández, director of Communal Services in Guantánamo, acknowledged that the funeral service is overwhelmed and they have been forced to use two Etecsa (phone company) vans and two Commerce trucks to transport bodies. continue reading

“On August 4 we worked with 67 [deceased], on the 3rd with 61 and on the first day of August with 80,” of the latter 69 were in the city. The official data published by the Ministry of Public Health for these two days gave, respectively, 9 and 8 deaths in Guantánamo, instead of the 67 and 80 managed by the Communal Services, and registered a national total of 93 and 98 deaths for those same dates.

The page that analyzes the data of the Ministry of Public Health has been idle for days and has been updated twice in the last month when it used to be updated daily. “Due to the fact that the way of reporting the deceased by the Minsap was changed, we will be making some changes in the project and, therefore, we will not update, for a few days. We will soon be up to date again. We apologize for the inconvenience,” says the website.

The rapid expansion of capacities in cemeteries, the shortage of hearses and the data provided by so many Cubans on dead relatives or acquaintances all gives an idea that the death figures should be higher than those officially reported.

The way of counting deaths from coronavirus has been controversial in most countries of the world, since very different criteria have been followed. In Europe, where the first wave caught unexpectedly and overwhelmed the systems, each country counted in its own way: France only added those who died in hospitals, Spain did not include those who died in nursing homes without a test, Italy those who had negative PCR and Germany was late incorporating them based on the data set, among other examples. Added to this chaos was the testing shortage in March 2020.

However, little by little, most of these countries have brought the figures closer to reality, with the incorporation of tens of thousands of people in the official records some time later, and also using the statistics of excess mortality over previous years.

The comments of the Cuban Minister of Health suggest that the authorities have realized that they cannot maintain an optimistic discourse when images multiply — even in the official provincial press — of collapsed hospitals and cemeteries.

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‘Last Night 36 Patients Died in Cienfuegos Hospital’ Laments a Cuban Doctor

The number of staff in Cienfuegos hospitals have been reduced by almost half. (Perlavision)

14ymedio, Havana, 18 August 2021 — “The Cienfuegos hospital continues to have an oxygen deficit. The helicopters of the Primetime News on Cuban Television are something symbolic for the need that exists,” a doctor from the province, which has replaced Ciego de Ávila as the province with the highest positive rate of covid on the island, tells this newspaper.

“In recent days 32, 34 patients have died. Last night 36 patients died, of which only 4 had a positive PCR at the time of death. They are the only ones registered as dead by coronavirus, but in reality the other 32 were post-covid patients and they don’t count them,” says the source.

The doctor adds that in the province there are generally one or two deaths of pregnant women a year, but in the last four days there has been a daily death. “That gives an idea of the crisis we are experiencing,” he explains, while reproaching the government for trying to pretend to continue reading

have everything under control, making it difficult for humanitarian aid to arrive.

However, the provincial press continues to move the pieces. A few days ago the Ciego de Ávila newspaper confirmed the lack of oxygen and the precarious situation in the area, and now it is September 5, the official Cienfuegos newspaper, which speaks of an “unprecedented scenario” in an article titled Covid-19 in Cienfuegos: The truth on the Table.

The newspaper denounces the fact that diagnostic tests are lacking, PCRs pile up without results, there is poor management of cases in primary care according to their risk, and that people end up in serious condition in hospitals due to the lack of screening. Added to this is the lack of medicinal oxygen — despite the incorporation of the Armed Forces and Russia into production — and the shortage of medicines and medical supplies.

To all this is added, the newspaper continues, that what the Government promised does not always arrive. “I must tell you that there are problems with food, that in not a few cases breakfast has been eaten late and lunch appears in the afternoon. It also happens that after discharge people have to wait up to three and four hours for transportation,” denounces a citizen.

September 5 also addresses one of the most serious problems, the lack of healthcare personnel. According to the newspaper, of the 701 doctors in the province, 446 are working. Most of those absent are in the care of children and relatives, but many others have tested positive for covid-19.

“There are reports of low medical coverage in isolation centers, this affects the quality of care for patients and represents an overload for the healthcare personnel who work in these spaces (…) In a visit to the Carlos Roloff vocational pre-university, from Cumanayagua, there were 250 people admitted and there were only two doctors to attend that universe,” details Félix Duarte Ortega, of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba (PCC).

The newspaper reports that the “political authorities of Cienfuegos recognized the effort of those who work in hospitals and isolation centers, in clinics and polyclinics. Those who do not give up despite the thousand and one difficulties that are experienced today.” The strategy is part of the pro-government dynamic of recent days, which tries to soften the conflict created by Prime Minister Manuel Marrero when he blamed doctors, specifically from Cienfuegos, for the violations of protocols that promote the spread of covid-19.

The rebellion of the doctors has grown since that day, both among the usual critics of the regime and in those who believe in it but watched the spectacle of being blamed for managing the disease when they have to fight in the front line against it devoid of resources, and in a framework of war medicine.

“The medical personnel exist and are sacrificing themselves, what does not exist are the means. Many of us believe that they are subjecting us to genocide. While the people die they are watching the doctors to see what they say, if they are in favor or not of the Revolution,” denounces the doctor from Cienfuegos.

President Miguel Díaz-Canel has been tweeting praises to healthcare personnel for three days in an attempt to redirect the situation. On Sunday, when the clamor of the health workers spread through the networks calling for the resignation of Marrero, he said, with little luck: “Today the groups in which we go through life are more visible, according to José Martí: On the one hand those who love and create. And on the other, those who hate and destroy. The former do not lie or slander or defame, they do not hate. They are saving lives. The others cannot with that light.”

A day later, he rectified the divisive message with another that only had a positive tone: “What we have seen the most in this time is the patriotism of our people, the Healthcare personnel, the scientists, of all those involved in the millimeter-level oxygen operation, people who are working full time in complex situations. Thank you all! ” That same day, the official press vindicated the doctors with an article titled At the foot of the patient, the hero who does not serve enemy campaigns, which once again separated the like-minded from the critics.

Yesterday, Tuesday, the campaign continued, with an image on the cover with the faces of doctors and nurses in the article entitled Let’s think about them and take care of ourselves. “Gratitude for the titanic feat assumed by our Health workers in this battle against covid-19 also requires, now more than ever, our responsibility,” says the official newspaper, on this occasion, taking care to refer to the ’rebels.’

Ernesto Haber Santos, a doctor at the Saturnino Lora Hospital in Santiago de Cuba, has rejected, through Facebook, the government’s campaign called Put your heart in it, with a view to once again winning the favor of his star workers for decades.

“We work with the little we have and the hardest we can. Tired, leaving our family and putting it at risk. But one is not willing to publicly assume reality, it is better to look for a culprit, and from what I see, everyone is worth it. We have plenty, we are leaving it it the ground, and at the rate we are going we will have to continue leaving it until who knows when,” he said.

The doctor asks the Government to accept that the situation has reached the limit and to accept help. “The covid-19 overcame us, overcame the United States, Spain and Vietnam,” claims the doctor, who asks the authorities to rectify and recognize the excellence of the countr’s health workers or, on the contrary, to say if they are graduating untrained people and “pride in our medical power is a delusion.”

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A Danger for Pedestrians and Vehicles at Carlos III Center

A post located in Carlos III, between Ayestarán and Requena, in the municipality of Plaza de la Revolución. (Collage)

14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 20 August 2021 — Havana is falling apart. No matter how much that phrase is pronounced among Cubans and especially by those from the capital, it will not be enough, given the serious infrastructure problems that are seen in every corner of a city that is home to more than two million inhabitants.

This is the case at Carlos III — a four-story shopping mall — between Ayestarán and Requena, in the municipality of Plaza de la Revolución, right across from the veterinary clinic. The public lighting in the area has problems with the poles and streetlights.

Some of the supporting poles, such as the one captured by the 14ymedio lens, are a danger to pedestrians and vehicles. They lack a rigid support at their base, they are bent, almost to the point of falling onto the public street. continue reading

The most recent repair of streetlights on the capital’s roads was focused only on a part of the Malecón from Maceo Park to Paseo del Prado. In addition, according to the Office of the Historian of Havana, the Martí Park and the lights located at the entrance of the Bahía Tunnel were going to be included.

While other areas of the capital continue with deteriorated public lighting such as in the Plaza municipality, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel went to the La Güinera Popular Council, in the Arroyo Naranjo municipality, without taking into account a resurgence of covid cases that does not decline.

According to the official press, the president went to the place on Friday “to speak with the authorities, local actors and the population about the process of transformation that is being undertaken in the community.”

In a first stage, work is being done on “urbanization, asphalt, bridge repair, hydraulic and sanitary infrastructure, roads, housing connections,” according to information published in the official Twitter account of the Cuban presidency.

In exactly that area, one of the most depressed areas of Havana, Diubis Laurencio Tejeda was shot and killed by policeman during the protests that began on July 11 (11J).

After learning of the death of Laurencio Tejeda, the Government has used La Güinera for its regular political propaganda and has sent several officials. “They wanted to rob our neighborhood,” Díaz-Canel said this Friday from the community. The Government also affirmed that the “actions to improve the infrastructure” are carried out with the support of the community and various entities.

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US Plan to Offer Internet In Cuba Forces Etecsa to Lower Prices

The new prices for phone service are still out of reach for Cubans who receive a monthly minimum wage of 2,100 Cuban pesos. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 19 August 2021 — The Cuban Telecommunications Company (Etecsa) announced this Thursday a rate cut and launched new mobile web browsing packages, an action that reflects the regime’s concern about Washington’s movements to bring free internet access to Cuba.

In this context, Etecsa has announced some cosmetic changes. With the legend: “+MB X Less price” they published on their networks the renewal of their 14 GB LTE package that previously cost 1,125 Cuban pesos (CUP) and which will now offer 16 GB for 950 CUP. The changes, which took effect this Thursday, are also reflected in the combos that include web browsing, phone calls and SMS (texting).

The Basic Plan will cost 125 CUP, and will now include 800 MB, 20 minutes of phone calls and 20 SMS; the Medium Plan will cost 250 CUP for 2 GB, 30 minutes of phone calls and 40 SMS, and the Extra Plan 500 CUP for 4.5 GB, 75 minutes and 80 SMS. continue reading

The new packages come at a time when customers have been forcefully demanding a flat rate, so Etecsa is far from meeting the demands of its users. Until now, this package is offered only to private workers, and at still very high prices.

The discounts now announced are still very far from the pockets of people who receive the monthly minimum wage, which is 2,100 Cuban pesos, although there are offers of combined packages. As of August 1 there have been adjustments in the costs of SMS within Cuba, set at 1 peso, and an hour of international navigation hour costs 12.50 for customers with permanent accounts.

It is worth noting that the Cubans are losing interest in SMS as it has been the target of Government controls, surveillance and censorship of text messages where several terms and words have been blocked from being sent. As a result, Cubans are using SMS less and preferring to take refuge in safer services such as WhatsApp, Telegram and Signal.

The Cuban government is trying to avoid Washington’s initiative with all the weapons at its disposal. And proof of this is that the Cuban authorities have denounced the initiative to the International Telecommunications Union (ITU) for considering it “a frank violation of sovereignty and national security,” as revealed this Tuesday on the State Roundtable television program, by the vice minister of Communications Wilfredo González.

“What the United States wants is to provide a parallel internet to our country (…), and we are not really going to allow such interference, because it would be violating not only our Constitution, but also the very preamble of the Constitution of the International Union of Telecommunications (ITU),” he said.

Cubans were first able to use the internet on mobile devises as of December 2018. The island was the last country in the region to allow its citizens to surf the internet through their cell phones.

At the end of 2018, President Miguel Díaz-Canel allowed the sale of the first navigation plans including data. Cubans were able to buy their first cell lines in 2008, after the reforms promoted by former president Raúl Castro.

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‘I Was Desperate to Get Off That Island, Which to Me Seemed Like a Disaster Ruled by a Demon’

Writer and actor Jorge Luis Camacho during an interview last May with Radio France International. (Capture)

14ymedio, Yaiza Santos, Madrid, August 15, 2021 — Jorge Luis Camacho was born in 1956 in Cardenas, Matanzas province. As he recalls, the Cuban flag — “an annexationist flag” which incorporated a star from the flag of the United States —was raised there for the first time. For forty years he has been a resident of Paris, where he has worked mainly as an actor and screenwriter.

Now he has written his second novel, the saga Cuban Symphony, composed in three parts: Allegro ma non troppo, Tempo Marziale and Da Capo. He tells 14ymedio that he was trying to examine the odd phenomenon of Castroism: “A dictatorship that took over in less than two years but which cannot be dislodged, even today.” The overriding desire to write it, he says, came from an organic necessity that forced him to imagine, in a diffuse and subtle way, the end of the regime.

In this interview he reads some passages from the ending: “Some predict that a popular uprising will sweep away everything in Cuba, others that the economic disaster will force the regime to negotiate with the opposition. What nobody imagines is that Cuba will stay the same.”

Yaiza Santos. Writing Allegro ma non troppo relies on a lot of historical documentation, which is cited at the end. For the story of the main family, who lost their sugar refinery after the Revolution, were you inspired by someone you knew, by some personal experience?

Jorge Luis Camacho. No. the history of Cuba is filled with such people. It isn’t necessary to listen to someone who has lived through it. When I wrote Symphony, I found someone, Nicolas Gutierrez, whom I thank in the book. His story is virtually the same as Julio’s. But I didn’t want to have direct contact with a family that would expect me to respect certain rules. I wanted to invent the characters, which gave me the freedom to do what I wanted. If history is very present, it’s because there was a moment when it seemed to me that reality was so rich that fiction alone could not continue reading

reflect it. History and fiction complement each other.

Yaiza Santos. One of the most remarkable things about the first volume, which coincides precisely with first year after the triumph of the Revolution, are those historical asides at the end of each chapter. Seeing them together is impressive: the restoration of the death penalty, the executions, the abolition of the separation of powers, the nationalizations… It was all very obvious from the beginning and yet many were enthralled with Cuban Revolution, a phenomenon that to some extent exists to this day. How do you explain this?

Jorge Luis Camacho. Frankly, I have no explanation for this. I think one of the things driving it, for example, is that some Europeans have a kind of love-hate relationship with the United States for reasons that I don’t quite understand but which are real. But I don’t think that explains the whole phenomenon. I like to say that communism, or the communist left, is a non-theistic religion. The left is waiting for a messiah and every time one comes along, they say, “Ah, this is the one.” First it was Lenin, then Stalin, followed by Mao, then Fidel came, then Chavez… then they all failed.

But the messianic left doesn’t care. They will love the next one just the same. I think it has something to do with Christianity. Even though very few communist leftists would believe me if I said they were religious, they are. Look at what just happened in Peru. It’s surprising that, just at the moment when Venezuela is a disaster, when Cuba is a disaster, people voted for a communist, who is open about it. And in six months we will see everything that he has destroyed.

Look at what just happened in Peru. It’s surprising that, just at the moment when Venezuela is a disaster, when Cuba is a disaster, people voted for communist.

Yaiza Santos. It seems metaphorical that you have a character in the book named Libertad [meaning liberty, or freedom], for Libertad Lamarque, who suffers from cancer.

Jorge Luis Camacho. Libertad’s cancer is the cancer of liberty in Cuba, with Batista and the rest. Even though Cuba had a constitution that outlawed capital punishment, it still had a lot of problems. Libertad’s illness worsens as liberty in Cuba gradually disappears.

Yaiza Santos. I was referring to a broader metaphor. Freedom is very fragile and contains within it a dark well capable of generating its own destruction. There is another character named Cohen, who says: “It is typical for autocracies to promise things that society has not achieved by itself, and only tyrannies can create the illusion of obtaining them.”

Jorge Luis Camacho. It’s not an accident that his name is Cohen. Getting back to Libertad and what she represents, if you notice in the first scene there is a crazy lady who throws herself in front of the car and says, “Liberty, liberty, don’t abandon me!” This could also be the response of uneducated people, who don’t have a compass and who throw themselves at anything, as has now happened now with the Peruvians.

Yaiza Santos. Part I manages to be suspenseful even though we know how it ends. What does the reader find in the other two volumes?

Jorge Luis Camacho. Part II takes place during the 1960s, after the new regime comes to power. That’s why it’s called Tempo Marziale. All three parts have Italian titles because they’re musical. And it’s called Cuban Symphony because it’s also a story about frustration.

Julio had wanted to be a musician but couldn’t because he’s the only one left in the family capable of getting its sugar refinery back. What’s beautiful in the end is that his son, who is a musician, wrote a short symphony when was 12 years old for his father and uncle when they were at Playa Girón, at the Bay of Pigs. [By the way] it’s not not called that because it has something to do with pigs; it’s because there are some very cute little tricolor fish that live in those waters. His son becomes a professional musician, expands the symphony and performs it on the day Julio is giving a speech at the family’s rebuilt factory, which obviously represents the country.

I don’t describe how freedom comes about but rather imply that it happens due to a social disaster that everyone could foresee. What’s curious is that the book was published in June and, less than a month later, the protests of July 11 occurred. The main character in my story is called Julio [July] and the chant that was repeated most often during those protests — “Libertad” — is the name of his mother. I feel like a magician [laughs].

If I made that joke, I’d end up prison for ten years. Now he’s saying this in front of me because we’re all together

Yaiza Santos. How did you leave Cuba for France? Had you already rejected the Revolution or did that come later?

Jorge Luis Camacho. I was always against the Revolution. I never had any appreciation for that system, despite the fact that I was raised by my older sister — my mother, like Julio’s, died of cancer when I was six years old — whose husband admired the Revolution and even became a party member. I had already been expelled from the Higher Institute of the Arts in Havana, allegedly for political reasons.

I was desperate to get off that island, which to me seemed like a disaster ruled by a demon. I didn’t believe anything he said. I have an anecdote about that. I was participating in a series sponsored by the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. When I got to the theater, I realized it was an event in honor of the army. The theater looked like a field of beans, everyone dressed in green, a horror.

Raul Castro was there and I heard him telling counterrevolutionary stories about how he explained to his mother what communism was. He told her, “Mama, we now own a banana orchard because this is socialism. When we no longer own a banana orchard, that will be communism.”

I thought, “These people must be kidding me. And taking my life away.” I thought that if I made a joke, I’d end up prison for ten years. Now he’s saying this in front of me because we’re all together, eating things that I had never seen in my life except in the movies. That confirmed my intuitions. I left Cuba with a lot of… I don’t like to use the word hate but, yes, I hated them.

I also left for love. I was hopelessly in love with a woman who was half French. She was the daughter of an impoverished baroness who had become a dancer at the Moulin Rouge and had married a Cuban dancer.

Yaiza Santos. How is your relationship with other Cubans living in Paris? Do you feel part of the Cuban exile community in France?

Jorge Luis Camacho. Yes and no. Because I lived and work as though I were French. I am clearly the only founder of the French screenwriter’s guild whose native language is not French. I knew Cubans in France but I was not actively involved in that world. I was also not very politically active at that time.

French governments, both of the left and the right, have a kind of admiration, no matter how ridiculous that might seem, for Fidel Castro.

Yaiza Santos. What attitudes have you found among the French towards Cuba?

Jorge Luis Camacho. Well, I’ve known some French people who were as anti-Castro as I, to the point that I thought that they were working for the French secret service. For the most part, French governments of both the left and the right have a kind of admiration, no matter how ridiculous that might seem, for Fidel Castro.

It’s surprising but right here in Paris, in the gay district, you see guys wearing Che Guevara T-shirts. Here was a homophobe, an absolute murderer, and yet there are people who believe he’s a symbol of freedom. France, both the people and the government, is not anti-Castro. Fidel Castro was welcomed with great fanfare by Mitterrand. Then Hollande welcomed the lesser but no less diabolical tyrant Raul, and many intellectuals attended the banquet that the president gave for the dictator.

Yaiza Santos. Would you go back to Cuba?

Today, for being lucky enough to have written this novel at this historic, consequential moment — because we’re all waiting to see liberty fully realized — I think so. I think I can play a role. I don’t know what but I will have a roll to play. Even though I have an eighteen-year-old son in France whom I don’t want to be away from, going to Cuba, acting on Cuban television or in Cuban movies… all these are things I dream about. Working for Cuba from France for a new Cuban government would also be something I’d like very much to do. Of course, all of us who live overseas think we have a role to play. I think it’s up to Cuba to decide whether to give us that role or not.

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‘Cuadernos Carcelariosa’ Reveals a Series of Stories from Cuban Prisons

Illustration by the Cuban artist Luis Trápaga. (EFE)

EFE (via 14ymedio), Federico Segarra, Madrid, 16 August 2021 — A book lover decides to create a literature and narrative workshop in a Cuban prison nineteen years ago, out of sheer altruism. A few months ago, he met a Spanish editor on a terrace in Havana. This is the genesis of Cuadernos Carcelarios (Prison Notebooks), a collection of biographical experiences of Cuban prisoners that naturally reveal the prison idiosyncrasy on the Island, real and raw stories that pass between drama and humor.

It all comes from Ernesto Arcia and his literature workshop in Combinado del Este, a maximum security penitentiary near Havana. This 39-year-old Cuban, who currently also teaches poetry lessons, has spent almost half his life helping to stimulate the art of reading and writing for prisoners, giving classes to all those who “wish to train,” without distinction.

Through the workshop “many prisoners have been trained for when they are released,” Arcia explains to Efe proudly from the Malecón, hidden from prying ears and looking for a decent internet connection, especially coveted these days in Cuba. “Some discover a hidden appetite for learning and end up in college,” he adds.

The human stories of people with problems and the harsh conditions of Cuban prisons are the main axis of the stories, but for the director continue reading

of Hurón Azul, the Spanish publishing house that published this book last July, Nacho Rodríguez, perhaps “the balance between what you can talk about and what you can’t” in today’s Cuba is the central reason for these.

There is hardly any transparent information about Cuban prisons. It is known that there are 200 prisons on the island. In Belgium, with a population almost exactly the same (11.4 million), there are only 35. In addition, Cuba is the country with the fifth largest prison population in the world in proportion to its inhabitants, according to the World Prison Brief study, of the Institute of Crime and Justice of the University of London 2013. Cuba is one of the few countries where updating the data since then has not been possible.

The illustrations by Luis Trápaga, a Cuban artist living in Havana vividly accompany the stories, but they also provide their own chapter that tells a visual history through drawings, an acid criticism against repression and submission entitled the ’Decalogue from Prison Island.’ “Before, you had to ask for permission to leave Cuba, and it was a kind of jail in that sense,” Trápaga told Efe. And nowadays?

“It has been the artistic piece with which I’ve worked with the greatest freedom (thematic), I have been able to draw whatever I wanted.” However, Luis reveals that “many of my artist friends have problems on the Island” and recalls how he also spent a couple of nights in jail for “attending a performance in the Plaza de la Revolución. That seemed offensive to them.”

For Trápaga, “violence and eroticism among the prisoners (all men) is the common element” of most narratives, where homosexual sex abounds in the stories.

An open eroticism that results in a total uprising against the slogan of “work will make you men,”,a lapidary phrase that welcomed the forced labor camp that Ernesto Che Guevara built in the Guanahacabibes peninsula after the victory of the Revolution in 1959, and that in its beginnings housed Cuban homosexuals, enemies of the State because of their sexual condition.

Another of the stories in the book, details the stay in prison of Pablo, an inmate who was sentenced to 40 years for killing a cow. Cuban writer Jorge Carpio, who edited the prison accounts, explains that this sentence is “hyperbole, but it reflects with humor the severe punishments that prisoners faced for common crimes,” and adds that the penalties for stealing livestock were harsh in the early years of the Cuban revolution.

The only account of a political prisoner is by Ángel Santiesteban, a well-known Cuban writer and dissident. His brother tried to escape from the Island three decades ago, and he was sentenced to fourteen months when he was just 17 years old for not betraying him.

Santiesteban, hiding in a house in the Cuban capital, explains to Efe, anxious about an arrest that he considers imminent due to his participation in the demonstrations of July 11, that his story was written during his long imprisonment on a hunger strike, already from adult and for political reasons: “They mistreated me by giving me a perfidious liquid when I was already on the verge of starvation, and they showed me photos of my son, also detained and tortured.”

The story came out because some prisoners, “friends who gambled it for me” took him out to the streets. And he also denounces that now he only “wants to live, write and create in freedom. Period”

Carlos Montenegro, a pioneer in Cuban prison stories, and whose narration is the first of the stories in the book, written from prison and published in 1929 of the last century, opined: “Think of a country under tyranny, it is a prison.”

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The Rebellion of Cuban Doctors Spreads in Holguin With a New Video

23 health workers from Holguín express their complaints in a new video published this Wednesday. (Collage)

14ymedio, Havana, 18 August 2021 — More than twenty Cuban doctors have denounced the health collapse in a new video and have shown solidarity with their colleagues who, last weekend, broadcast another audiovisual to demand supplies and protest against the criticism of the sector launched by Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero.

On this occasion, and in a video of a little more than four minutes, 23 health workers express their complaints about the lack of medicines, means of protection to work, and oxygen to save the lives of patients, amid a resurgence of cases of Covid-19 that has put the battered health system of the island in check.

“Our patients need help,” warns the resident in angiology and vascular surgery Julio C. Hernández at the beginning of the recording. “We also need help, we do not want more people to continue dying,” adds the doctor in his brief complaint dated, like that of the rest of the doctors who participate in the audiovisual, on August 16.

“We demand that we be treated with respect,” claims internal medicine specialist Reinier Ávalos, who also requires “adequate means of protection to be able to work.” A request expanded by Dr. Jorge L. Báez: “We request more support from health personnel, fewer continue reading

demands, fewer complaints.”

The criticisms of the Prime Minister, Manuel Marrero, against health personnel have unleashed a storm that comes at the worst moment for the Government. The doctors, whose internationalist missions are the main source of economic resources for the regime, have started a rebellion against the leaders of the country, which is still living under the effects of the July 11 protests.

In the video released this Wednesday, the neurosurgery specialist Linda I. Green asks for “drugs and supplies to provide care for our patients.” Several of the doctors used the comments to speak about the concept of “healthcare collapse,” a definition that the Cuban authorities reject and that they prefer to substitute that of “overstretched hospitals.”

“We see ourselves collapsed at the institutional and national level. We demand supplies to treat our patients with dignity and decorum,” stresses resident Rosell Albertaris, while Óscar E. López takes the opportunity to show his solidarity with colleagues from the Vladimir Ilich Lenin Hospital, from Holguín, who made the first demand video.

Since Marrero accused the Cienfuegos health workers of “neglect” last week and pointed to subjective causes as the main reason for patient complaints, the complaints against the prime minister have spread to several provinces, but have been especially energetic in Holguín, one of the regions most affected by the outbreak of the pandemic.

“Let’s not tell any more lies and let’s assume things as they are,” warns Luis Miranda, a resident in anesthesiology and resuscitation, an opinion shared by his colleague Dr. Blanca who adds that “what is happening now is untenable. It is sad and very painful, and I believe that anyone who feels committed to the oath they took should feel the same. “

As part of the responses to Marrero, several personal and collective letters from health workers have also circulated in recent days that point out the problems they must overcome every day to be able to do their work in the midst of collapsed hospitals due to cases of contagion, the lack of medicines and the few protective supplies they have.

This avalanche of critical opinions from a sector considered for decades to be in line with government policies coincides with the approval of strict legislation to control the opinions that are published from the Island on the internet. Under these new regulations, issuing any opinion that damages “the prestige of the country” can be considered a crime.

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Be Silent or Complain: The Dilemma of the Relatives of July Protest Detainees

Yunior Villarejo Estévez and Eduardo Manuel Báez arrested for the popular protests last July. (Collage)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 15 August 2021 — The relatives of the protesters arrested on July 11 are debating between a public denunciation or keeping a low profile to avoid further complicating the situation of their relatives, but more and more people are breaking their silence to demand immediate release or to point out irregularities in the judicial process.

“I have not been able to sleep for a month,” said Eduardo Báez, father of 22-year-old Eduardo Manuel Báez, speaking to 14ymedio. The younger Báez was arrested with his girlfriend one day after the demonstrations. She was released with 8,000 pesos as bail but the young computer science teacher is still under arrest. “We have not been able to see him or talk to him,” says the father from Güines, Mayabeque.

“They were accusing him for the crime of public disorder, but also for robbery with force, which is the little poster that they hung from those who, allegedly, participated in the events in the MLC stores, which occurred together with the protests when the people entered against these establishments owned by the army,” he details.

The stores that take payment only in hard currencies were the target of popular fury in several localities, where citizens smashed windows continue reading

and looted shelves. Managed by the Cimex corporation, a military conglomerate that controls large sectors of commerce, these stores have earned social anger for selling food and basic products in foreign currency.

“Because the MLC stores belong to the army,” Báez points out, “it is the military prosecutor’s office that is accusing them,” and adds that they have not even allowed him to hire a lawyer. Last Wednesday the situation became even more complicated for the family when they learned that the young man had tested positive for Covid-19 in a prison in San José de las Lajas, Mayabeque.

The name of Báez is one of the hundreds included in the list of detainees and disappeared of the 11 July protests that several activists have written about despite the setbacks: “In Santiago de Cuba aberrant things have happened such as that they have released the person but they have taken their cellphones and those of the their immediate family, so they have not been able to communicate with anyone for days, so that complicates the updating a lot,” reports journalist Ivette Leyva, who has contributed to the preparation of the list of detainees, speaking to 14ymedio.

According to this list, of the total complaints collected, 164 are women and 672 are men. There are still 170 cases that are in the process of verification and there are 168 detainees, while 197 people have been released, although the majority are in home confinement.

Báez is concerned that they are being cruel to his son: “Many people who were in the stores and who had in their possessions items stolen from these establishments, which were then seized, have already been released, even without bail.” Seeing this panorama, he wonders: what is the problem with my son, is there any anger against him?”

“He is not a vandal, he is not a thief, my son only likes to play video games and with computers. He is a man with the mind of a child, a young man full of poverty who only lives on his monthly salary,” he says, expressing pride and pain. “As a father I am desperate,” concludes Báez.

Odalys Estévez, 30-year-old mother of Yunior Villarejo Estévez, has also chosen to denounce the situation of her son, detained on July 11 in Havana. The woman relates that in the summary trial that was carried out on July 20, Villarejo received a 10-month sentence of deprivation of liberty for “public disorder” and is in the Valle Grande prison.

Arrested at the intersection of Reina and Belascoaín streets, in Centro Habana, the young man was beaten during the arrest by State Security agents who took him from the demonstration with violence: “I have the videos. I had hopes that they would release him with a precautionary measure even if it is for house arrest and they did not do it,” says the mother.

“There has not been any kind of consideration, he did nothing. They beat him because he just picked up the phone (…) I can’t take it anymore, I don’t know what I’m going to do, my son is innocent, a tremendous injustice that they have committed with him,” he says.

Others have received better news despite the sad days. This is the case of the relatives of Reyniel Pacheco who recently reported that the young man had already been released.

“Today I want to thank all the people who supported me with the freedom of my brother, they have already released him,” wrote Yani Pacheco, the detainee’s sister, on his Facebook profile. Pacheco was held incommunicado since July 12, when he was arrested, and his whereabouts were unknown for several weeks until, in a call from Quivicán prison, an inmate alerted them of his whereabouts.

A similar case is that of Damián Yacel Hernández Viera, one of the protesters who took to the streets of the Quivicán municipality, Mayabeque province, on July 11. The authorities of that territory notified him that all the judicial charges against him would be withdrawn. Hernández was also returned the 8,000 pesos he’d paid in bail.

Meanwhile, dozens or hundreds of families refuse to speak to the independent press or to report the arrest of a relative. They cling to the idea that maintaining discretion could aid their relative’s speedy release. With their reports, the number of those arrested during that day and the following days could increase considerably.

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