14ymedio – Page 277 – Translating Cuba

The Defense of the ‘Young Man With the Placard’ Reclaims the Right to Protest

Considered a political prisoner, Robles remains in prison awaiting trial. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, August 10, 2021 — Luis Robles Elizastigui, the “young man with the sign” arrested on December 4 during a protest on San Rafael Boulevard in Havana, spent 15 days in a punishment cell in the Combinado del Este prison. This was reported to 14ymedio by his brother, Landy Fernández Elizastigui, who managed to speak with him after a month without receiving any news.

During the call, which this newspaper had audio access to, Luis Robles explained to his brother the reason why he was locked up in the punishment cell: they found some photos which, Fernández told 14ymedio, were “some images of the campaigns that have been carried out calling for freedom.”

In any case, Robles assured his brother that he is “calm.” “I’m a little weak because I lost some blood, and my blood pressure got out of control,” he says, but until today what he has done “is rest” to see if his body will recover.

He also mentioned that he was seen by a doctor, who told him continue reading

that he was going to refer him to a hospital outside the prison for a medical check-up, but that this has not happened yet.

Luis Robles has been threatened in prison. “It’s difficult, a very difficult time. They’ve threatened to put you in jail,” he explained to his brother.

Landy Fernández had previously told this newspaper that the lawyer had received a fourth denial of his request to change the precautionary measure to allow Robles to await trial at his home.

“The lawyer showed me the latest application that he presented on August 2, based on the words of the President of the Supreme Court who said in a press conference on July 24 that ’thinking differently, questioning what the process is doing, or demonstrating, constitutes a crime,’” he said.

Considered a political prisoner, Robles is in prison awaiting trial for protesting peacefully last December 4, calling for the release of rapper Denis Solís and an end to repression in Cuba.

Robles, 28, doesn’t belong to any opposition group, but he is suffering in his own body what it means to be a political prisoner in a Cuban jail for exercising his right to protest. His brother reported that in May he had received mistreatment and punishment that caused a skin allergy that triggered severe wounds.

During their Sunday conversation, Robles and his brother also spoke about the family: “My mother is very worried about the whole situation of my father and yours,” Fernández told him, referring to his father, who was sick with Covid.

At the end of July, a Facebook page created with the activist’s name to demand his freedom, published a video in which Luis Robles talks about his thoughts, his wishes, and also the reasons that led him to be a protestor. The material was recorded on December 1, three days before he was arrested by the police and accused of “enemy propaganda” and “resistance.”

Seven months after Robles was arrested for expressing himself with a sign in the streets of Havana, thousands of Cubans took to the streets and plazas of more than 40 cities throughout the island demanding freedom, the resignation of Miguel Díaz-Canel, and the end of the regime. Hundreds of them remain in detention and are being prosecuted for alleged crimes of public disorder, contempt, or transmission of epidemics.

Translated by Tomás A.

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Cuban Youtuber Ruhama Fernandez Arrested Yesterday in Santiago de Cuba

Ruhama Fernández has been a victim of constant harrasment and repression from the police and the state security. (YouTube/Ruhama Fernández)

14ymedio, Havana, Last week, Ruhama Fernández delivered, via direct phone call from Cuba, a powerful testimony during a round-table meeting in Miami with GOP Minority Leader Kevin McCarthy, legislators from Florida and several influencers, artists and community leaders from the Cuban diaspora.

14ymedio, Havana, August 10th, 2021 — Cuban Youtuber Ruhama Fernández was arrested by Cuban police Tuesday morning, as she was preparing to leave her house in Santiago the Cuba. She was taken to the police station and criminal investigation unit in the Versalles neighborhood. Fernández was scheduled to participate in an online event this Wednesday, where influencers — inside and outside the island — were planning to debate the future democratization process in Cuba.

Venezuelan writer Deivy Garrido, who has been in direct communication with a friend of Fernández who was able to reach the police station to ask about the detainee, reported on his Twitter account that the Youtuber “was to be accused of ’contempt’ and would continue to be detained for 72 hours” until authorities could reach “a decision.”

Relatives of the young woman and social media users who follow her denounced the repressive act as “another illegal” and “arbitrary” detention by the authorities. The legal services NGO Cubalex pointed out that Ruhama Fernández is one of the “most harassed” continue reading

activists on the island.

Ruhama Fernández is constantly reporting on many of the issues affecting the area where she lives, such as the chronic shortage of food and hardships in which many families survive. She herself has been the victim of harassment and repression by State Security and Police agents, who have not stopped pressuring her to stop doing her work.

For a year now, she has been under constant surveillance from the island’s authorities for for what they call “public interest reasons.” This is a mechanism used by the authorities to arbitrarily restrict the free movement of activists, independent journalists and dissidents and opposition figures in general, a practice that has become a common repressive method.

The debate in which Fernández was going to participate this Wednesday also includes host Alex Otaola, actor Roberto San Martín, Cuban activist Eliécer Ávila, economist Manuel Milanés, the poet Luis Dener, who lives in Norway, and the Youtubers known as Old Hardcore and KarlitoMadrid. The debated was going to be moderated by journalist Gabriel Bauducco. It is sponsored by the Freedom and Federalism Foundation (Fundación Federalismo y Libertad), a private non-profit organization based in Argentina that aims to “promote the values of a free and democratic society.”

In March of 2020, Fernández was one of the winners of the contest for Cuban influencers organized by the Red Cuban Power platform. Recently, she participated in the forum “The role of influencers in the Cuban public sphere,” promoted by the Cuba Program of the School of Politics and International Relations at the Sergio Arboleda University of Colombia.

* Translator’s Update: DEVELOPING STORY:

Fernandez was released in the late night/early AM hours of 8/11/2021, and she posted on Twitter a live audio as proof. She described how 15 agents forcibly entered in her house, confiscated all her video equipment, including her laptop, while filming everything with their own camera man. Fernandez said she will be sharing on social media and live videos soon.

Translated by: Mailyn Salabarria

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“Give That Kid a Real Name!”

“On 11 August 1995 I finally held you in my arms and smelled you for a long time.” (Courtesy of the family)

14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Generation Y, Havana, 10 August 2021 — I always knew your name was Teo. It is a long story of childhood, literature, an imaginary friend and confidence in believing that you were just around the corner, we just needed to meet. On 11 August 1995 I finally held you in my arms and smelled you for a long time (I am one of those people who widens my nose when someone approaches for the first time).

Yes, that little being in my arms smelled like Teo. As I always dreamed (a mix between Bruce Lee and Diogenes … don’t ask me why I define you that way, everyone who knows you knows the answer). When we introduced you to the closest family, there was no shortage of responses in the style of “Give that kid a real name!” But what else were we going to call you…

Quirky and sharp, you speak little but can destroy or elevate with one sentence. When you had to repeat for the first time, in school, the slogan “Pioneers for communism, we will be like Che,” you refused. You asserted then that Guevara was dead, and you didn’t want to be. The first insult you learned was “filthy” and we had to listen to this from you for several years until you used more vulgar ones.

At the age of five you recited Heberto Padilla’s “tell the truth, at least tell your truth”

On a trip to the native city of your father, Camagüey (the cradle of good pronunciation of the language on this island, according to its own residents), they asked you if you came from the Peninsula beyond the seas because you pronounced “all the letters of all the words”… At the age of five you recited Heberto Padilla’s “tell the truth, at least tell your truth.” At seven you learned German, knew snow and became universal, a condition you have to this day.

Teo, you have connected profoundly with many people. In four words you have defined what it would have taken your father and me (insolent tongues) half an hour of explanation. You throw a phrase like an X-ray that pierces the body, a sentence of darts that pierce the mind. There are people who fear so much sincerity and withdraw, people who cannot stand you. It is, my son, that you are a free man. Free from the inside out, which is the best way to be.

In November 2009, you had to face the reality of having your two parents arrested, you were only 14 years old then but you behaved like a millennial adult: you made phone calls, you reported, you spoke on the radio and you waited. The reunion was like that of the grandfather who receives his two lost grandchildren with love and caresses… everyone who knows you knows that I am not lying. You are like that.

You throw a phrase like an X-ray that pierces the body, a sentence of darts that pierce the mind

Since then, you have had to experience everything and you have done it in that stoic way that does not seek applause or commiseration. You have done it because you have done it, serving as a father to your parents, something that should not be… never should be, but you have assumed it without complaining. I have not met anyone as mature, equanimous and confident as you in these more than four decades that I have lived.

Teo, you had to grow up so fast. Wary of the informants, the false friends who only wanted to use you as a bridge towards us, the lifelong whistleblowers, the classmates who wanted to earn points by making “life impossible” for the son of the dissidents and, however, like Antonio Machado’s verse, you ended up sprouting “serene spring” … which is “in the good sense of the word, good.”

Fashion, material displays, famous brands, the shocks of the moment … only achieve in you an answer very similar to that which is read at the end of the novel “The Glass Bead Game” by Herman Hesse, when one of the protagonists says to the other, who tries to challenge him and provoke him: “You are tiring yourself Joseph.”

I reiterate: you were already here, you always were and we have been only the modest vehicle for you to continue living

Whoever wants to get you out of your boxes and annoy you exhausts himself, you are made of hard, imperishable and beautiful clay. You are from a generation that is going to live and make the Cuba of the future arrive as soon as possible. You have no debts with the past, nor guilt.

Have we deserved such a child? Were these the circumstances to be able to have this luminous being among us? Probably not, but how happy we are to have been part of your shelter, your stairs to climb, your pole to jump and the logs ready to burn in the fire of your existence.

Teo, it’s been 26 years since I held you in my arms for the first time and I smelled you with the force of this nose (quite big by the way… jejeje). I reiterate: you were already here, you were always here and we have been only the modest vehicle for you to continue living, so that your strength continues flowing and your wise imprint prevails over so much tension and so much folly.

By the way, Teo, you smell like eternity. Did you know?

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Costa Rica Grants Refugee Status to Cuban Journalist Karla Perez

Karla María Pérez, at the Tocumen International Airport, Panama, last March. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Lorey Saman, Mexico, 9 August 2021 — Cuban journalist Karla María Pérez, whose return to the island was banned in March by the authorities of her own country, received refugee status in Costa Rica on Monday.

As she explains to 14ymedio, “the refuge (it is not asylum), automatically gives me permanent residence in Costa Rica, which means legal status in the country, with access to social security, education, finances, and a work permit.”

Journalist and editor at ADN Cuba magazine, Karla María Pérez flew by Copa Airlines from San José to Panama last March without problems, but she was not allowed to board the plane there to continue to Cuba, according to what she told this newspaper at the time. They gave her no further explanation, “despite the fact that I met all the requirements, my paid extension [of the passport that lasts six years and must be extended every two years] whether I am resident or not on the Island, my PCR test, my ticket.”

An airline employee let her to listen to an audio “of an unidentified person from Migración de Cuba” who said, “No, it has nothing to do with extensions or with any legal requirements; Karla is prohibited from entering Cuba.”

Upon learning of her approval for refuge, Pérez wrote on her social networks that it was in Costa Rica, her second country, where she became an adult and has spent continue reading

the last four years of her life. “The Cuban dictatorship banishes me and Costa Rica, in this ’return’, welcomes me with open arms and recognizes my right to a little piece of land,” she said.

The young woman was expelled from the Marta Abreu de Las Villas Central University “for political reasons” in 2017 when she was studying journalism. She was linked to the Somos + Movement and had published on digital sites critical of the Government. She then traveled to Costa Rica thanks to a scholarship and graduated last December.

“The goal is to continue fighting the dictatorship from journalism, as I have been doing for more than four years,” she now tells this newspaper. “I don’t lose hope of being able to return to my country. To be free to choose, basically.”

It is a common practice for airlines to prevent Cubans who have exceeded two years off the island from boarding their planes, the regulatory time to maintain residence established in the Cuban Immigration Law that came into force in 2013. With this legislation, the authorities filter out the emigrants who, after spending 24 months outside the national territory, maintain a critical position with the regime.

The situation has been repeated on other occasions because the airlines that fly to Cuba have signed agreements that oblige them to carry a passenger back if they let him board without first having confirmation that he can enter the country.

Regarding the protests of July 11 (11J) on the island, in which thousands of Cubans participated, Pérez says that “they are a dream come true… I totally identify with the demands of those people who took to the streets, stripped of fear, to ask for freedom. Perhaps I would be currently imprisoned in Cuba, because on June 11 the house would have been too small for me.”

The reporter takes the opportunity to send “much strength” to her comrades who are fighting inside Cuba, “especially to fellow journalists” and points out: “Out here we will continue to denounce and press, because the silence is over. We are not going to shut up. From 11J there is no return. It is forward!”

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Cuban State Newspaper Denies, with Scant and Delayed Information, That There are Mass Graves in Cuba

Image posted on Facebook by the user Tîcö Äwö Ôrümîlä, who confirms that he had to bury his grandmother in a mass grave in the Juan González cemetery, in Santiago de Cuba. (Screen capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 6 August 2021 – Reports of burials in mass graves in Cuba that have circulated through social networks and some independent media, and have been denounced by NGOs such as the Cuban Observatory for Human Rights (OCDH), were denied this Friday with a brief note in the State newspaper Granma that came, as is usual with the official press, late and bad.

“A minority lacking information, but the majority moved by bad intentions, many people have re-posted images on social media corresponding to the burials of those killed by covid-19, in supposed mass graves, opened in the town of Juan González, 13 miles west of Santiago de Cuba,” says the note, which maliciously designates the unofficial media as “non-independents.”

According to the version of the Communist Party newspaper, the dissemination of information on “the loss of corpses” has led it to interview José Gonzalo Borrero Sotomayor, provincial director of Community Services and a chemical engineer, who assures that the transfer of the bodies has not been — one would say “they have tried to deny it” — improvised and forced by the gravity of the pandemic. Rather, for some time is has responded to the problems of space affecting Santa Ifigenia, the necropolis where the ashes of Fidel Castro are also. continue reading

The cemetery was inaugurated in 1868 and has become insufficient for a city that has grown to reach half a million inhabitants. In addition, its location prevents expansion, says Borrero Sotomayor, and is prone to flooding, reasons that have forced an expansion of the Juan González cemetery.

“The necessary use of mechanical means to expand the capacity of the cemetery, existing years ago in Juan González, could generate the impression that informal excavations are being carried out there. However, each operation has been carried out according to the technical standards established for this activity by the Ministry of Economy and Planning,” the official explains.

Burials must be done in such a way that each coffin is covered by 1.5 meters of earth or, in the case of graves that house several, respecting the same distance between the upper part of one and the lower part of the other. “All this is fulfilled to the letter,” since it is a matter that requires the greatest sensitivity, says Borrero Sotomayor.

The manager assures that no body has been lost and adds that the works to expand the burial capacity in Santiago de Cuba had been underway for a long time before the pandemic reached the island. The one that is most advanced will be located in an area known as Hicaco, on the Siboney highway and, although it is designed to house 10,000 bodies, in a few months its first block, of 365 graves, will be finished.

The other projected cemetery will be located at kilometer 10 of the Central Highway in the direction of El Cobre. Once the time for the exhumation* has elapsed, the remains of family members can be transferred from Juan González to these facilities, according to Granma.

Roberto Alejandro Ibarra Ruiz published on August 1 on his Facebook wall a video in which a group of gravediggers was seen burying two coffins in a mass grave allegedly located in that necropolis.

“On July 24, I buried my grandmother in the Juan González cemetery and, as you can see in the video, they are burying her in a grave, mixed with the people who died of Covid-19, when she did not suffer from that disease. So, what are we talking about? How long are we going to continue living on lies?” he wrote.

Ibarra’s publication sought to respond to the official television presenter, Humberto López, who assured that a similar complaint was a hoax that used images from Brazil to make them pass for a cemetery in Cuba. With the video of his grandmother’s funeral, Ibarra questioned the reporter and demanded that he show the video, but got no response.

Granma claims to have spoken with the young man and clarified with him that the burial had taken place in row 4, pit 16, and not as he suggested, although the young man’s version is unconfirmed, since he has not published anything else since that day.

*Translator’s note: In Cuba it is common practice, after a certain time has passed, to move human remains from the grave they were buried in to mausoleum and reuse the original grave. This is described in a note on Colon Cemetery in Havana: “While it is the final resting place for the vast majority of those who were buried here, it’s not final for everyone. Recent burials in the cemetery only remain in the ground for three years, after which they are exhumed and laid to rest in a specially constructed building.”

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In Cuba, the Dead Go in White Coffins for Lack of Black Fabric

A coffin is transferred to a cemetery in Santiago de Cuba in August 2021. (Jorge Carlos Estévez García / Facebook)

14ymedio, Juan Diego Rodríguez/ Natalia López Moya, Havana, 8 August 2021 — An image invades social networks since the unstoppable increase in deaths from Covid: that of white coffins, a very unusual color in Cuba, where gray and black reigned until now at funerals. “There is no black fabric,” they tell 14ymedio employees of funeral homes in various provinces.

The pandemic has forced the use of different materials due to the increase in deaths. The State Communal Services company must search all over the country to obtain the wood, the cardboard and “the cloth cover for the box,” an improvisation that causes discomfort among the families of the deceased.

“Now they are all of poor quality,” lamented a relative this Friday, who was waiting to be transferred from the La Nacional funeral home in Havana to the Colón Cemetery.

The resurgence in deaths from Covid-19 has hit especially all the supplies related to wakes and burials: coffins, wreaths, dedication ribbons, tombstones and even niches to deposit the mortal remains.

“They could hardly load the box because it seemed like it was going to fall apart,” continue reading

Margarita Luaces tells 14ymedio. Lucase is the sister of a Covid-19 patient who died last July in Morón, Ciego de Ávila. “The coffin was an made of bad wood, covered in cloth and the bottom of a very fine cardboard, we were afraid that the corpse would fall out on us.”

“My brother’s was a white coffin, something that shocked us because it was not the most common but they told us that it was the fabric they had available, it did not have any of the metallic ornaments that they used to use and as soon as they lowered it into the pit one of the corners opened up, it was a terrible image,” she adds.

“The coffins for adults, Model 900, are being lined with whatever fabric they can get, white, blue, whatever there is,” confirms to this newspaper a funeral employee of Ciego de Ávila, the province that has recently become one of the epicenters of the covid in Cuba and with the cemeteries packed daily with new burials.

This is also the case in neighboring Sancti Spíritus. “We have problems with the brads to place the lining, so the boxes are coming out with less,” acknowledges an employee of the company Producciones Varias. “The blackouts affect us a lot, you can’t use the saw to cut the slats and you have to do it with a machete,” he adds.

“If the family member brings me the fabric, I will line the box to their liking, but almost no one has time to bring anything because, between the death of the relative and the rush to bury him, there is no time for anything,” explains this worker with more than two decades of experience in the sector. “They are taken straight from the hospital to the cemetery in most cases.”

Numerous videos and photographs of very poor quality coffins arriving at cemeteries have begun to circulate in recent weeks on social media. The reports of mass graves, the bad smell around the cemeteries and the extensions of the mausoleums, have focused attention on the funeral services.

“Traditionally, here, white coffins are used only to deposit the remains of small children and people with Down syndrome,” an employee of the funeral home on Calle 37, between 60th and 62nd, in Cienfuegos explains to 14ymedio. However, the Communal Services worker does not rule out that they will soon have to resort to other tones given the rise in deaths.

But he has not only had to improvise with the colors. “I had a wreath made for my grandfather who died of a heart attack and he only had six flowers and everything else was leaves, they didn’t have a ribbon available so we had to cut some curtains to make him some pretty bows,” a young woman lamented this Sunday, at the Marcos Abreu funeral home, on Zanja Street at the corner of Belascoaín in Havana.

In the large room, that day the coffins were mixed, with some in dark cloth and another in white cloth, and all the bodies that were veiled had died of other causes, according to an employee. “In the case of burial they go in their box, but they are already going to the crematorium in bags because the demand for coffins is very high and there are no materials,” the employee admits under anonymity.

At another important funeral home in the Cuban capital, La Nacional, workers confirm that the situation is tense and the coffins they have are of very poor quality, with some lined in dark and others in white. “Those who died from covid here in Havana go in bags directly to the crematorium, they do not go in a coffin.”

“The coffin is what you see, like the flower wreaths, but there are many other problems that nobody fixes until you have to run with the procedures of a funeral,” says Mónica Estrada, sister of a deceased by a stroke in Morón. “The funeral home didn’t have any coffee to sell to the mourners.”

“There are not enough hearses a self-employed worker who lives behind the cemetery and is dedicated to making markers and placing the inscription chosen by the family, told me that he has a waiting list until September because his orders have skyrocketed and he has no material. “So we had to bury my sister without a marker or anything in place.”

“When you arrive at the cemetery it is another problem, because there are many families crying because of how quickly everything has gone and others who are going to remove the remains of a long-dead relative from their family vaults, to make room for the one who has just died,” he says. Estrada. “You have to remove one dead person to put in another because there is no space.”

Last February it was announced that the Cuban authorities were in talks with Industrias VEQ, one of the companies that manufactures the EcoAtaúd [EcoCoffin], which is produced in Mexico at a much lower price than the traditional one out of wood. The coffin is made of polyaluminum, a material that comes from the containers with a mixture of two raw materials, 70% plastic and 30% a thin layer of aluminum.

This media spoke with the company in the Mexican capital but the employee could not confirm if that contract was signed and if those coffins have arrived on the island.

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Ciego de Avila Hotel Set Up as Pediatric Hospital for Patients with Mild Covid-19

The Ciego de Ávila hotel temporarily becomes a pediatric hospital for mildly ill patients with covid-19. (TripAdvisor)

14ymedio, Havana, 5 August 2021 — The authorities continue to mobilize resources towards Ciego de Ávila, which already has an incidence rate of 2,700 cases of Covid-19 per 100,000 inhabitants, which is classified as extreme risk by the World Health Organization. This Wednesday, the authorities reported the conversion of the Ciego de Ávila Hotel, a modest three-star establishment in the center of the city, into a pediatric hospital to accommodate cases of mild infections.

With the centralization of children in the hotel, the Camilo Cienfuegos military school, where children were previously isolated, will take in sick adults, and the Las Cañas motel makes 53 beds available to pregnant women under 25 weeks.

The Minister of Health, José Ángel Portal Miranda, added that an attempt is being made to transfer most of the sick to “assistance centers” because, although home isolation is within the protocol, the situation requires putting an end to contagion between cohabiting people. In addition, the measure aims to bring the sick closer to hospitals, since a delay in care can be lethal. The ambulance shortage has been emerging for weeks as a serious problem for coronavirus patients.

According to the official press, ambulances have been sent to Ciego de Ávila from other provinces of the island and the authorities have authorized 100 pedicabs to provide different services in the different health areas continue reading

of the municipality and the Antonio Luaces Iraola provincial hospital.

The center has also been forced to reorganize itself to obtain 185 new beds that will be installed in areas such as the reception area, the ophthalmological center and the blocks of internal medicine and pediatrics.

The aid that has arrived from China joings that mobilized from within Cuba, which has been forced to relocate a multitude of resources in this province. Ciego de Ávila is going to receive, according to the authorities, 400 beds with their mattresses and a reinforcement of healthcare workers to cover isolation centers, an increase in consultations for respiratory infections, and a reopening of primary care areas that have had to be closed.

About twenty Cuban doctors who were providing services in Venezuela arrived at Jardines del Rey International Airport on Tuesday to provide services in the province and another 200 arrived on Wednesday.

Jorge Luis Tapia Fonseca, Deputy Prime Minister, announced that the 134 beds set up at the University of Medical Sciences can be doubled to “guarantee the necessary conditions and eradicate organizational difficulties.”

Ciro Ugarte, director of Health Emergencies of the Pan American Health Organization (PAHO), warned this Wednesday of the current severity of the pandemic on the Island. “This is due to the Delta variant, which has been reported by the authorities in several places in the country, “he warned. The official stressed that the economic situation, the lines Cubans must wait in to shop for necessities and the “exhaustion of the population regarding the measures that have been adopted to protect them,” affect the worsening.

Of the 98 deaths reported this Wednesday, the highest number since the pandemic began, 23 occurred in Ciego de Ávila, well ahead of Havana (with 11), which has four times the population.

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Guantanamo’s Funeral Service Has Collapsed, According to Communal Services Official

An official clarified that, on average in the province, about 12 funeral services are held daily, a figure that has skyrocketed in recent days. (Iliana Hernández / Twitter)

14ymedio, Havana, 9 August 2021 — Corpses transported in trucks, funeral services overwhelmed, and collapsed hospitals, are the complaints that, from various parts of the country, reach the 14ymedio newsroom. Complaints also flood social networks, one of the few avenues where Cubans pour out their pain for the loss of loved ones who die without medical attention or optimal assistance.

This is what happened in Guantánamo, where the complaints have reached the local telecenter in that province. Ihosvany Fernández, director of Community Services, had to respond to the complaint of an Internet user who published on his Facebook account the photo of a truck destined to transport goods when it was used to transport five bodies.

Fernández, before giving other details, acknowledged that the image was real and explained the situation of the fleet of funeral vehicles: “We have 29 and 17 are operational, which is 58%.” The director of Communals also clarified that on average, in the province, about 12 funeral services are held daily, at least eight in the city of Guantánamo and four in the rest of the province; a figure that has skyrocketed in recent days.

“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 funeral transport has already collapsed. We are working continue reading

with two Etecsa [State phone company] vans and two commercial trucks,” he added.

“We act on the protocol according to the death certificate issued by public health. These corpses are treated in a logical way, to explain it to the population where the corpse is disinfected with chlorine, the corpse is sprayed in the bag where it is introduced,” explained Fernández.

“It is very difficult, from eight deaths a day to 69, no one was prepared, that is why the issues with the transport decisions that we have had to make,” admitted the official when clarifying that “the morgue is not prepared for that,” it only has capacity “to have five or six deceased there” and not “to receive 50 or 60 a day,” he said. He also announced that they are working on installing another cremation furnace in the province because the only one that exists does not provide enough capacity and has suffered breakages due to the increase in deaths.

The crisis has reached a point in health centers, where some doctors and nurses have not shown up for work. Dr. Pablo Feal Cañizares, who heads the national commission to support Guantánamo, when talking in the official press about the intervention process with the Abdala vaccine, said: “Today we have more than 300 nurses and more than 100 doctors, where it is not clear they are actively engaged.”

In other provinces of the country, not only funeral services have collapsed. The health system has also been overwhelmed and the responses from doctors and officials are even more frustrating. This is the case in Santa Clara, from where a relative sent a video to the 14ymedio newsroom to expose the vicissitudes suffered by a 69-year-old woman whohad a stroke at home on Monday.

When the ambulance arrived at Jacinta Rivera Rodríguez, the nurse made arrangements to transfer the patient to a hospital. “There is no bed and, given the conditions, he had to die at home, was the answer given to the ambulance by the doctor at the coordination center,” the relative complains.

After much insistence, Jacinta was transferred to the Arnaldo Milan Castro hospital in Santa Clara, where she was placed in a space for respiratory cases, a space that includes part of a corridor of the health center. “They have her ventilated in an open room where there are Covid patients.”

The video shows how the area with beds and stretchers with sick patients stretches from the entrance to the hospitals. “She needs to be in an intensive care room now but they say they have no capacity,” the relatives denounced and after complaining to the deputy director of medical assistance at the hospital, they informed her that “she has to stay here until she dies.”

From the Holguín Pediatric Hospital, a source confirmed that health personnel do not have a rapid test to test patients. “They do a plaque, if they have serious lungs, you have Covid and you stay hospitalized. If you do not have serious lungs they send the child home.”

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Responsibility for Cuba’s Economic Crisis

Los Quimbos is made up of 100 marginal homes in which more than 500 Cubans live, without water or sewage, and many without electricity. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Elias Amor Bravo, Economist, August 7, 2021 — Once again the Castro regime is tripping over itself to pass a series of laws aimed at, according to the official press, “strengthening the Cuban socio-economic model.” These actions, adopted with urgency but little forethought, have received the approval of the Council of State.

Government, Council of State, Communist Party: the triad of those responsible for the failure of the economy. They have not covered their tracks so there is no way that history will absolve them. Nothing more and nothing less than eight separate laws, issued as decrees, which presumably will be published in the Official Gazette in the coming days. They deal with the so-called “socio-economic strategy of the country.”

Regulations about which very little is known. Given the way parliamentary and the governmental regulatory processes work in Cuba, we will not find out what is in them until they take effect, without their ever having been subject to public scrutiny.

Among the regulations that got the green light from the Council of State — the regime’s supreme decision-making body and therefore the party responsible for whatever ends up happening — is a law on micro, small and medium-sized companies. It allows for the creation of continue reading

these types of businesses in a way “coherent with the legal framework,” recognizing their role as an “actor which has an impact on the productive transformation of the country.”

This law seems to mark a return to a situation that existed until 1968, when Fidel Castro’s fateful “Revolutionary Offensive” abolished all legal private enterprise throughout the country. Now, fifty-three years later, this appears to be an attempt to roll back that decision. We’ll see if the regulations governing these businesses encourage them or not. One has to be vigilant.

The council gave its approval to a law on non-agricultural cooperatives, which will regulate their formation, operation and dissolution. Expanding the cooperative sector throughout all areas of an economy seems reasonable, even in a free-market economy, where cooperatives work well. They should work even better in Cuba, especially in sectors where they are currently not allowed, like banking, education and even health care. This is another piece of legislation to which we will have to pay attention since we do not yet know enough about its contents.

The council adopted on a law on self-employment that updates some general provisions and regulates other particulars. Undoubtedly this is another important piece of legislation since it is not yet known in which direction the regime intends to go in controlling the growth of one of the few areas in the communist economy in which private enterprise is possible. It would be a mistake if its operation were restricted given that inappropriate limits have already been set for newly formed medium-sized businesses. In any case, self-employed workers should have the same legal protections and abilities as any company to operate with autonomy and independence, free of excessive government control.

Also approved is a law on private sector employment and a special social security provision for self-employed workers. It will cover partners in non-agricultural cooperatives and in micro, small and medium-sized businesses. The goal of this law is to offer these workers the protection of social security benefits. Its guidelines establish a means of control and suppression of private sector conomic activity, which to a large extent is dictated by the very nature of the country’s economic and social model.

On the other hand, it establishes a method for financing social security, which is beginning to have problems paying for pensions due the aging of the population and low tax collection rates.

Likewise, an amendment to Decree-Law 113, adopted in July 2012, was approved. It modifies the tax code and is aimed at increasing tax revenues, affected by the country’s serious economic crisis. Although its contents are unknown, it will try to relieve the financial pressure caused by a recession that has been dragging down the Cuban economy since the second half of 2019.

Another law — one dealing with the conservation, improvement and sustainable management of soils and the use of fertilizers — was incorporated into the set of guidelines that received the Council of State’s approval.

Agricultural supplies are in short supply because they cannot be bought abroad due to the lack of foreign exchange earnings. And in sixty-three years no communist leader has bothered to produce them. It remains to be seen how this legislation will deal the situation, which is limiting agricultural production.

Also mentioned in the Granma article is the law on real estate records. It establishes public registries of property ownership, applying information and communication technologies, as provided in the Decree-Law 335 of the public records system.

Having failed to address the dark issue of expropriations that took place between 1959 and 1968, it is patently absurd that the regime devotes so much attention to pubic real estate records when, in many cases, these registries attributed property titles to owners other than the actual ones. This is another assault on legality that will have to be corrected by a government at the service of all its citizens,

The provisions approved by the Council of State, with their complementary regulations, were announced in Granma and will be published in the Official Gazette of the Republic but, as always, with barely any public or parliamentary debate and without input from the Cuban people.

These provisions are being approved solely on the basis of communist political imperative even though their feasibility depends on acceptance by the population. The experiments in this case are being driven by the current economic and social situation, which is pressuring officials to act, though they are not going in the right direction.

Cuba’s communists have already shown this year that they intend to govern without listening to the people. Currency unification was a politically a high priority but caused the worst economic crisis in the country since the Special Period.

The July 11 demonstrations were a clear sign that the people cannot take it anymore. It is not a question of the Council of State approving more and more regulations in hopes that the social situation will calm down. It is about committing to measures that really transform the legal and economic framework so that the nation can prosper in freedom.

This, on the other hand, is just entertaining an impossible idea. We are far beyond that point. To “strengthen the process of updating the Cuban economic model” is to turn our backs on reality, to go down a path different from the one Cubans want while trying to save what little remains of an experiment that has been a historical failure. Meanwhile, we will continue to wait for the guidelines to be published in the gazette to find out what they say and question them if appropriate.

The Council of State has lost an historic opportunity to provide the changes the country needs for the good of all Cubans. It is actively complicit in incompetent and unsuccessful actions by a government that places legislation on the table for its approval based on ideological communist obligations.

The Council of State could have returned these decrees to the government, or to the National Assembly, without approving them, as is its legal right, thereby taking a clear stand on the uselessness of these measures when it comes to restoring nation’s economy.

They are complicit in the disaster and are as responsible as the Communist Party, to which they are beholden, for the national disaster. Every day that goes by makes it more likely history will judge them harshly.

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Cuba’s Electric Union Announces Countrywide Blackouts

The problems in the electricity supply have increased since Friday afternoon, the Electricty Union (UNE) said in a note. (Yoani Sanchéz)

14ymedio, Havana, 8 August 2021 — “I haven’t been able to sleep all night, moving the fan so my child can rest,” Heidy Vázquez, from the Aguada de Pasajeros municipality in Cienfuegos, comments to this newspaper, speaking about a blackout that lasted six hours due to technical failures they are affecting the whole country.

In the midst of the intense heat of August and at a time of great social sensitivity due to the resurgence in the Covid pandemic and the protests of July, the Electricity Union (UNE) announced this Saturday what many feared: technical problems in two thermoelectric plants, with their corresponding supply interruptions.

“Due to the fact that units 1 and 2 of the Lidio Ramón Pérez Thermoelectric Power Plant (CTE) with 420 MW and unit 5 of the Antonio Maceo CTE with 85 MW are out of service due to breakdowns, the electricity service is being affected by a deficit of generation capacity,” explained the state monopoly in a brief note that provoked angry criticism.

Among the main complaints, some users like Heidy Vázquez question the delay in the information. “They told us about the breakdowns when we were already suffering blackouts, so there is no way to plan,” she says by phone. “Also in this house we have Covid and we continue reading

have felt very bad without being able to heat even a little water to make a tisane, because we cook with electricity.”

In the Vázquez neighborhood “there are several houses with confined families because they were infected” and the power cuts that began last Friday “have also affected the water supply, so we are sick and unable to bathe or wash our hands as often they recommend.”

“Now they say they are breakdowns, but the service cannot be trusted for a long time. When it is not due to the generation deficit, then they cut the power because they are pruning trees, or the circuit is interrupted by just one light wind and all that, despite the very high price of electricity since the beginning of the year,” Vázquez complains.

Supply problems have increased since Friday afternoon, the UNE note says, and they will continue through Saturday, the text details. “It is expected that units 1 and 2 of the CTE Lidio Ramón Pérez will be incorporated into the National Electroenergetic System (SEN) tonight and early tomorrow, improving the situation as of tonight.”

However, reports that reached the editorial office of this newspaper confirm that the interruptions have continued in the center of the country and some Havana neighborhoods. In the town of Agabama, Sancti Spíritus, residents were without electricity from 7:00 pm until after two in the morning, as were large areas of the province of Las Tunas.

“We are working uninterruptedly to solve these breakdowns. We apologize for the inconvenience caused,” ends the note released this Saturday from the UNE, a company that until noon this Sunday had not reported that it had completed the repairs.

“Keep removing the current that is going to heat up the country again,” warned an Internet user on the entity’s Facebook account, a comment that others repeated in reference to popular outrage over the power cuts that were one of the reasons why the population of San Antonio de los Baños took to the streets on July 11, an example that was followed by the rest of the country that same day.

At the end of June the authorities announced a breakdown at the Antonio Guiteras Thermoelectric Power Plant in Matanzas. This problem made it necessary to move up the blackouts the Government had announced for this summer. Power outages of up to more than five hours affected all provinces for several days.

Shortly afterwards, the SEN reported the outages of several units of the Lidio Ramón Pérez de Felton thermoelectric plants, in Holguín, and the Renté 6, in Santiago de Cuba. Then, the UNE assured in a statement that “the actions to regulate the demand in the state sector were well organized,” but the power cuts were extended even in the early hours of the morning.

According to official figures, during the summer 400,000 tons of fuel are destined per month to Cuban thermal power plants to cover the electricity demand that increases at this time of year due to a greater use of fans and air conditioners, in addition to other consumption that skyrockets with high temperatures.

The residential sector represents 56% of the demand, while state and non-state companies account for 44%.

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Relatives of Those Arrested on July 11 Denounce the Lack of Justice in Cuba

The police operation around the People’s Provincial Court of Havana, near the Capitol, continued this Monday, resulting in near empty streets. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 9 August 2021 — Of the dozen appeals filed last Friday to the sentences handed down against protesters from the July 11 protests, only four have been successful. The strong police operation that day around the People’s Provincial Court of Havana, near the Capitol, to prevent relatives and onlookers from approaching continues as of this Monday.

In the opinion of a lawyer consulted by this newspaper, who clarifies that there are still appeals to be presented, there were lawyers who made “a good defense,” arguing as their main thesis that there was no crime or proposing an “adaptation” of the sanction to benefit the accused. Despite this, the court declared the appeal “valid” in only four cases.

“After the appeal, two defendants who were deprived of their liberty were modified to correctional work with internment; another, to correctional work without internment, and a fourth, to limitation of liberty. For three, the measure of provisional imprisonment was reduced,” details.

Among those who were lucky are Armando Sardiñas Figueredo and the photographer Anyelo Troya, responsible for filming the images taken in Havana for the video clip of Patria y Vida. Sardiñas sentence was changed from ten months of deprivation of liberty for equal time of correctional work on a farm, and Troya was continue reading

released with a fine of 14,150 pesos.

“I came out fined and exhausted but free. The trial lasted almost eight hours.”

“I came out with a fine and exhausted but free,” Troyat told 14ymedio this Saturday. “The trial lasted almost eight hours,” the artist added.

Another of the relatives of the detainees, Ostraida Quintana, posted on his social networks that his nephew, Damián Acevedo Quintana, was released on Friday night. “In the appeal trial he was sentenced to three months of correctional work without detention and a fine of 300 pesos (about 12 euros in the official exchange, 4 euros in the informal exchange),” he said.

“In Cuba there is no justice,” wrote Yaquelin Salas Hernández, wife of Dashiel Alfonso, one of those arrested after the demonstrations on July 11, at the end of the appeal of his sentence.

For her, the appeal trial showed “a total lack of respect” and the authorities “are taking actions to set an example… My husband was the only one who presented firm eyewitnesses, and the court’s decision was based on the fact that the witnesses could not agree on whether or not there were disturbances in the place, when that is factor,” says the woman in conversation with 14ymedio. “Both made it clear that the demonstration had happened, but whether they were people or riots, that depends on the perception of each one.”

Alfonso Catá was arrested when he came to the defense of a woman who was violently detained by three civilian-clad political police officers.

“Both witnesses agreed on the concrete fact of what happened and above all that my husband never acted with violence; on the contrary, he was the victim of violence”

“Both witnesses agreed on the specific fact of what happened and above all that my husband never acted with violence; on the contrary, he was the victim of violence. His witnesses did see what happened and if they know the reason for his arrest, which does not constitute a crime and it was proven. The sanction of my husband like that of many others was crude and showed a lack of respect at the highest levels,” she says.

She explains that “these arbitrary processes” are unprecedented. “I am going to demand the principle of equality before the law because my husband had many factors in his favor and they were simply dismissed, clearly because they understood it that way.”

For the lawyer Laritza Diversent, director and founder of the Cubalex legal advice center, the only beneficiary was the defendant who was released or was acquitted: although the sentence seems less rigorous, for example changing prison for a regime of “correctional work,” such as in the case of Sardiñas, “they have to work like mules and the conditions are terrible,” she told 14ymedio.

Diversent says that Troya was released because he was “very visible” as a result of its participation in Patria y Vida, but the rest of the detainees did not enjoy the same luck.

The lawyer also denounces that the law was selectively enforced: “Not all the people who participated in the July 11 demonstrations were accused of public disorder and, at the same time, those who participated in favor of the Government and responded to the president’s call [to defend the Revolution] were not sanctioned,” she laments. “No proceedings were initiated against them, not even against those who initiated violence with sticks and stones.”

“There is nothing of benevolence in a sanction for something that does not constitute a crime,” continues the attorney. “Demonstration in Cuba is constituted as a constitutional right and the people went out and demonstrated. There is no rule that says how they should do it and ‘public disorder’ cannot be used to restrict human rights in the way it was used.”

Diversent says the State wasted the opportunity offered by the appeals to correct the “mistakes” they made when trying the protesters in municipal courts

Diversent says the State wasted the opportunity offered by appeals to correct the “mistakes” they made when trying the protesters in municipal courts with “serious violations of guarantees and due process.” The president of the Supreme Court himself said that mistakes had been made and that they could correct them, notes Diversent, but “they did not.”

The lawyer, who is collaborating in the preparation of a list of detainees and disappeared after the historic day of protests, calls on the State to stop the “prosecution” of the July 11 protesters. “Those people only came out to demonstrate. Even those who reacted violently, it was in legitimate defense, because the one who gave the order for violence was the president,” she believes.

After watching the videos of that day, Diversent’s perception is that the police authorities were not protecting public order.

“They prevented the exercise of a right that is recognized in the Constitution and there was no reason to do so,” she said. And she continues to enumerate: “They did not acknowledge the violations of the guarantees of due process, which in many cases were without lawyers in the first place. In the cases where a lawyer was hired, the defendants were still not represented, because the lawyers were not allowed to participate in the trial.” Now, she concludes, all that remains is an appeal for a “review.”

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Sancti Spiritus Will be Without Water During the Maximum Worsening of the Pandemic in Cuba

It was not possible to start the repair work earlier because the necessary resources “were outside the territory,” said an official from the province. (@DelegacionSsp)

14ymedio, Havana, August 4, 2021 – The city of Sancti Spíritus will be without water for at least three days next week due to repair work. But the authorities warned that it could be longer, given the possibility of a new “impact” that is not foreseen in the plans for fixing the “biggest leak in the city.”

The cutoff of the water supply affects 70% of the population of that area, about 90,000 of whom reside in the city, according to a note in the local press.

The Director of the Provincial Aqueduct and Sewer Company, Franklin Lantigua Moreno, said that “the work requires the complete replacement of one of the pipes and two 900-millimeter-diameter valves, located on the first street of the Camino de La Habana.”

“We’re talking about the entire central and northern part of the city, from the central park (Serafín Sánchez) to the north of the city and continuing toward the exits from the city: Los Olivos, Reparto Toyos, Kilo 12, Huerto escolar, Reparto July 26,” he said. He pointed out that the southern area of the city, housing 30% of the population, should not be affected by the work because it is served by the Yayabo Water Treatment Plant.

The official is blunt about an alternative for guaranteeing the supply of water by other means: “We don’t have a way to supply the entire population by water trucks.”

The solution that he has asked the residents to make is to set aside water reserves “that will allow them to supply their homes for at least 72 hours.” He did say that they are prepared to guarantee continue reading

sufficient supply through water trucks to “care centers, the Provincial Hospital, polyclinics, and isolation centers.”

Lantigua Moreno explained that what started as a leak of 15 to 20 liters per second is now more than 60 liters. “The material of the new pipe that we are going to install is iron, it is very resistant. According to experts it should last more than 60 years,” he said.

As he explained, they couldn’t start the repair work earlier because the necessary resources, such as valves, flanges, flange cutters, and 900-millimeter pipes, “were outside the territory.” According to him, they have had to hunt down all the necessary replacement parts for “interconnection” in Havana and Ciego de Ávila.

He says that they have several brigades in order to be able to work “continuously” because their goal is to finish before the weekend — “the days with the city’s highest water consumption.”

The cutoff of the water supply comes while the province is suffering an exacerbation of the Covid pandemic, with more than 200 positive cases a day. Of the 262 confirmed at the end of Tuesday, all were local with one exception, and included three deceased, one in Yaguajay and another two in Jatibonico and Trinidad.

The provincial capital is in the lead, with 102 patients, while Jatibonico has 44 patients, Taguasco 40, and Cabaiguán 25.

But the high figures are not only in the city of Sancti Spíritus: Trinidad registered 18 positive cases yesterday and has now imposed a curfew starting at two in the afternoon.

Throughout the province, the incidence of confirmed cases in the last fortnight is 669 per 100,000 inhabitants, a rate exceeded in several municipalities such as Taguasco with 1,648, Jatibonico with 896, and Sancti Spíritus with 778.

Translated by Tomás A.

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Amnesty International Seeks to Enter Cuba to Verify the Situation of Those Detained in the Protests

The Government has not provided data on detainees and it is unknown how many there are. (Marcos Evora)

14ymedio/ EFE, Havana, August 8, 2021 – Amnesty International (AI) asked the Cuban Government this Saturday to allow it to enter the country to verify the situation of the people detained on July 11 (11J) after the protests that were generated on the island.

“For years, we in AI have requested entry to Cuba, without success. Today I reiterate my request to (President) Miguel Díaz-Canel to enter the country to verify the situation of people unjustly imprisoned for exercising their right to protest,” said Erika Guevara-Rosas, Amnesty International’s director for the Americas, on her official Twitter account.

She also shared a letter sent on August 5 to the Cuban authorities requesting that they provide information regarding the number of people who were detained in the protests.

In the letter, the organization asked for information on the number of people who have been released to date, “and how many remain in the custody of the State and under investigation.”

On July 11, hundreds of Cubans took to the streets to protest against the Government with cries of “down with the dictatorship,” “freedom,” “we are not afraid” and to blame the regime for continue reading

the shortage of food, basic products, and medicines, the proliferation of shops with exclusive payment in foreign currency, and the chronic power outages.

Cuba is going through a serious economic crisis, with its coffers empty and unable to cope with its debts, to which has been added in recent weeks a dangerous rise in Covid-19 cases.

During and after the protests, which ranged from peaceful demonstrations to clashes with the police and looting in some towns, there was a wave of arrests of participants and alleged instigators, including anonymous citizens, artists, opposition activists, and independent journalists.

The Government has not offered data on detainees and it is unknown how many there are, although organizations have carried out their own studies that number them from more than one hundred to thousands throughout the country.

According to judicial authorities, as of August 5, 62 people have been tried for their participation in the protests, but the official number of detainees is still unknown.

In this context, AI requested in its letter that the Cuban government send information regarding the specific location of the detention centers where the people are detained, as well as the breakdown by jail or other place of detention in different parts of the country.

Finally, it requested that the authorities indicate the criminal charges made, broken down by number of people detained, and by gender or sex.

The greatest shouts of the 11J protest “were political: Freedom! and Down with the dictatorship!” insisted the Cuban Center for Human Rights (CCDH), led by the opposition activist Martha Beatriz Roque.

In its most recent report, the Havana-based organization alleged that, even if there had been little evidence of human rights violations in Cuba before, the events during the demonstrations and the days after “have made clear how the dictatorship breaks the very laws that it has passed, and how it handles those who participated in these protests, and their families ,behind the scenes. ”

In the same way that countless people tell “how they were beaten and tortured,” the regime “denies that this happened and wants to make it look like all the arrests were carried out with due process guarantees.” But, the CCDH insists, “the many videos, photos, and testimonies uploaded to the social networks support the version of the protesters.”

“The feeling of defenselessness about any type of right, which until now belonged mostly to the opposition, has spread to the social fabric, and many families have now felt at a visceral level ’not being able to do anything,’ not even knowing where their loved ones are,” decries the organization.

Along with the arrests and repression for the 11J protests, the CCDH indicated that the harassment and police siege of artists, activists, and independent journalists is continuing, as is the case with reporters Luz Escobar, from the daily 14ymedio, and Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho, of ADN Cuba, who was also arrested last month.

Translated by Tomás A.

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The Cuban Police Intimidate Young People to Force Them to Delete Content on Their Social Networks

The tweeter Ariel González celebrating his return home after being forced by State Security to give explanations for the use of a hashtag on his social networks. (YoUsoMiNasobuco [I wear my mask])

14ymedio, Havana, August 6, 2021 – Ariel González Falcón, one of the main promoters of the #SOSCuba label, has been forced to delete all messages tagged with that “call for help” after State Security detained him on Wednesday for about two hours in a police station where he was taken without a summons. The medical student affirms that he is trying to ask for healthcare aid and denies the insinuations of the authorities, who link the hashtag with a request for military intervention on the Island.

“I make these tweets to try to join forces and help get medications to the people who need them,” he said in a video posted on his Twitter account YoUsoMiNasobuco (I wear my mask). During the days before, González had invited others to share the hashtag in their publications. “This tweet is cited with #SOSCuba and is discussed with #SOSCuba. Let’s make a useful chain,” he asked.

“They were not intended to help or promote any military intervention in my country, much less to call people to an uprising,” adds the young man, who places himself on the sidelines of political issues and “campaigns.”

His case is not the only one. Youtuber Daguito Valdés, creator of the channel Yo hablo Fútbol (I speak football), also had to go before State Security. The young man, summoned this Thursday for an interrogation continue reading

at a police station in Pinar del Río, told 14ymedio that he was “questioned” about his publications on his social networks outside of sports and what they have to do with the Cuban reality.

Saily González, founder and director of the first coworking space for entrepreneurs in Cuba, is also among those who support the use of the label as a wake-up call to the world. “It’s not an empty hashtag. The world has to recognize our pain: There are no medicines. There is no capacity in the hospitals. They can cut our internet at any time because they are making the situation visible and arrest us. The Cuban government doesn’t care about us #SOSCuba,” she wrote.

On Tuesday, on the State television program Razones de Cuba (Cuba’s Reasons), the ruling party returned to its theory that the hashtag SOSCuba was launched in New York, as stated by the Minister of Foreign Affairs, Bruno Rodríguez, in a press conference a few days after 11J (July 11).

“They used agents paid by the U.S. Government who have committed illegal acts here in Cuba to try to obstruct the pronouncement of the United Nations General Assembly against the blockade,” said the foreign minister.

He added that since July 5, the “media laboratory that operates from Florida launched the Twitter campaign for humanitarian intervention in Cuba.” For the Minister, it is an aggression by the U.S. Government, which “today does not need missiles, does not need marines, and has an enormous capacity for unconventional warfare.”

According to Razones de Cuba, the United States uses the “cyberwarfare system to undermine the unity of the people.” The program used as illustrative content, publications from independent media and captures of tweets from computer scientist Norges Rodríguez, founder of the Yucabyte site, who also used the hashtag on his social networks.

More than a week ago, Rolando Arias Peñas and Luis César Rodríguez from Holguin were threatened in their homes by two agents of the political police. Both share on their social networks, constantly, content from independent Cuban media censored on the island, and denunciations of the regime’s repression against activists and journalists. In addition, they define themselves as “anti-communists” who advocate for freedom of the Island.

On July 23, Yoan de la Cruz was arrested; on 11J he made the first live broadcast through Facebook of the first protests in San Antonio de los Baños. Several friends and family denounced his arrest and demanded the release of the young man, whom they described as “brave.” “With a cell phone and a few megabytes, he taught the whole world that in San Antonio de los Baños there is a small town, but full of brave people like him.”

Translated by Tomás A.

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In the First Six Months of 2021 More Cubans Arrived in Mexico than in the Entire Previous Year

Cuba continues in third place by country, only surpassed by Honduras (26,557) and Haiti (13,255). (New Digital Life)

14ymedio, Lorey Saman, Mexico, August 4, 2021 — Refugee applications by Cubans in Mexico continue to grow strongly and already exceed last year’s figures. In the first six months of 2021, there were 6,446 petitions, compared to 5,778 during all of 2020.

According to the latest statistics published by the National Refugees Commission of Mexico (COMAR), Cuba continues in third place by country, only surpassed by Honduras (26,557) and Haiti (13,255), and followed by nationals from El Salvador, with 4,402 requests, and in fifth place by Venezuelans, with 3,558.

In the last eight years, 3,361 Cubans have been granted asylum, with a considerable increase in recent months. In the first six months of 2021 alone, 1,739 were approved. Thousands of Cuban nationals who initiate the procedure with COMAR don’t finish it, since their objective is to obtain a humanitarian visa to be able to transit through the country toward the northern border, cross into the United States, and request asylum there.

In any case, every day the number of Cubans who decide to live in Mexico grows. The latest report from continue reading

the National Migration Institute (INM) indicates that between January and June, 10,995 processed their legal stay in the country or renewed their residence.

In the last six months of 2020, the 8,258 Cubans who applied at the Migration offices were surpassed only by 14,344 from Venezuela and 9,472 from Colombia.

On the southern border, due to the increase in the migratory flow, delays in refugee processing have been reported. In mid-July and following the announcement made by the Government of Andrés Manuel López Obrador to provide humanitarian aid to the Island, Cubans stranded in Tapachula requested that their immigration applications be expedited and that they be granted humanitarian visas.

“The action of the Mexican government to help Cuba is very good, but I think it should start with the thousands of Cubans who are stranded on the southern border without a document to continue on or to remain legally in Mexico,” Carlos Quesada, a Cuban, told a reporter for the El Heraldo Chiapas newspaper.

Another Cuban migrant, Imarais Restrepo, told the paper that she has been in Chiapas for two years and was denied political asylum, but is again trying to obtain it. She also asked the Mexican president for his intervention to speed up the procedures: “I think it will now be easier to obtain our documents in order for us to have more peace of mind in this country.”

On the other hand, on the border with the United States the irregular entry of immigrants is complicated. The Biden Administration officially resumed rapid deportations last Friday by sending undocumented immigrants by air to their countries of origin in Central America.

The Department of Homeland Security reported that the “expedited removal process is a legal means of safely managing our border, and is a step toward our broader goal of safe and orderly immigration processing.”

A day earlier, U.S. Vice President Kamala Harris announced a strategy to address migration from Central America, which, in addition to combating corruption and violence in the region, has the support of other governments and U.S. companies.

The plan focuses on Guatemala, El Salvador, and Honduras, countries that make up the so-called Northern Triangle of Central America, where the largest flow of migrants seeking to reach U.S. soil comes from. Harris admitted that her country’s commitment “has often been inconsistent” and in recent years engagement in the region had been “significantly pulled back.”

Meanwhile, immigrants who manage to enter the United States illegally could be vaccinated against Covid-19. As reported by The Washington Post on Tuesday, the government is studying immunization only for those temporarily in the custody of the U.S. authorities.

Translated by Tomás A.

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