Making a Movie in Cuba with Porno Para Ricardo / Lynn Cruz

Gorki Aguila and Porno Para Ricardo in a scene from “Corazon Azul” (Blue Heart)

Havana Times, Lynn Cruz, 17 August 2018 – Last Saturday, we filmed a new scene for the movie Corazon Azul (Blue Heart) by Miguel Coyula. This time, we went to the Playa neighborhood in the capital where Paja Recol is located, a recording studio and Gorki Aguila’s home, leader of punk-rock band, Porno para Ricardo.

It’s incredible how the fact that this band can’t play on the island has become second nature.

Like anyone else from this punk genre, he rips every taboo and social convention to shreds. Everything is game for these musicians. Sex, Fidel Castro, a State Security agent, an official or even the outrageous figure of a district representative, who in reality is actually a city mayor. continue reading

It’s best if he doesn’t talk about you, my friend used to say. To be honest, it was the first time I saw this band play live. They played the same part of the song “Tipo Normal” (Normal guy) chosen by Coyula for a scene in the movie, over and over again.

A boundless energy and Aguila’s special charisma, along with Renai Kayrus and Yimel Garcia, filled the room.  In my mind, one question kept going round and around: what’s going on in this country?

I still can’t understand how, in all this time, I’ve only known about their work via USB drives, when they are literally only a few minutes away from my house.

How is it possible that Cubans can’t see these three musicians play, who only rehearse because the Cuban government doesn’t let them play?

The country has been drained over time. Now, we are only left with wrong ways. There is no reason why these musicians continue to be confined to a room in an apartment.

Art doesn’t make sense if it can’t be shown. At this point, we will never know what this band could have been if they had enjoyed full freedom.

They are witty, intense and original. While talking to Gorki about their impact on me, he told me in his humble way: “If you only knew, people have told me this, that they like to see us play.”

Miguel Coyula filming Prono Para Ricardo for “Corazon Azul.”

He also told me that when they were allowed to play concerts, they were always thinking about their performance. One time, they showed a guitar at the beginning and told the audience: “This Soviet guitar needs to die”.

They gradually distanced themselves and ended up becoming radicalized. Having celebrated its 20th anniversary, this band carries the tragic sign of what it means to be ahead of your time.

To be honest, they are missionaries at the wrong time because Cuban reality was greatly marked by the disastrous ‘90s. And in 1998, Porno para Ricardo was founded.

That’s to say, that Gorki, Kayrus and Ciro Diaz Penedo (also a founder) were already in the future. They were singing from the past to a post-revolutionary Cuba.

Nobody on the island had ever dared to mock Fidel Castro before like they did. This is important because eliminating political humor was one of the first changes that Castro made to the press.

The Revolution had to be serious. Coyula’s movies have a special connection to this band. You can see this in his movies Memorias del Desarrollo (2010) and Nadie (2017).

Now, in Corazon Azul, they not only come together with the same energy, but Porno para Ricardois responsible for creating part of the movie’s soundtrack and they will also appear playing on a TV channel, created within the movie’s plot.

Slowly, Cuba’s truly underground and alternative world will come together like a puzzle. Prison, persecution, repression are all constants for the majority of artists in this universe that have an influence, not in the fringes of the city, but outside of the Museum of Cuban Socialism’s political establishment.

Note: This article, in English, is taken from The Havana Times

Cuban State Security Blockades a Play in El Círculo Gallery (Updated)

The creators of the play Enemies of the People denounce that State Security called the piece “subversive” without knowing anything about it. (@liavillares)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 24 November 2017 – Cuban State Security managed to limit attendance to just two people to last night’s premiere play The Enemies of the People. The police cordon set up around the El Círculo gallery in Havana’s Vedado neighborhood, where the play was going to be performed, worked as a method of pressure to intimidate would-be audience members.

Activist Lía Villares, owner of the house that that provides the premises for the theater, related via twitter what happened when members of the political police were stationed in the vicinity of the Villares’s house and pressured the numerous guests to not enter. “Everything that happened yesterday in the presence of witnesses and neighbors demonstrates the agonizing situation of cultural rights and freedom of expression in Cuba,” denounced Villares. continue reading

Despite the pressures, the activist said that actress “Lynn Cruz could not have given a better performance.”

The work, interpreted by Cruz and directed by filmmaker Miguel Coyula, offers “a timely vision of Cuban society subjected to a dictatorship,” explain its organizers.

Cruz reincarnates Charlotte Corday, a famous character of the French Revolution and who murdered Jean-Paul Marat. On this occasion, however, instead of Marat, Fidel Castro is the target of her action.

In her Twitter account Lia Villares said that the staging “almost starred the henchmen of Section 21,” the Department of State Security that deals with surveillance against opponents. “They did not allow anyone to enter” the El Círculo Gallery, lamented the activist.

The piece also has an incognito character, played by the musician Gorki Águila who delivers an emotional reading of the list of names of the 41 victims of the 13 Tugboat 13 de Marzo, sunk in July 1994 by four official boats that used water cannons to attack the boat on which the victims were trying to flee the country.

The seats were empty and photographed to denounce the absence of the audience who felt pressured and left without seeing the work. (14ymedio)

Those killed in the tugboat incident were between the ages of 6 months and 50 years. After a week in which the official media silenced what happened, Fidel Castro described the performance of the crews of the boats that attacked the tugboat as a “truly patriotic effort.”

The independent El Círculo gallery is a frequent target of police operations. Last April, a large deployment of troops prevented the public from attending the screening of the documentary Nadie (Nobody) directed by Coyula, which presents the life of the poet Rafael Alcides, censored in the official publications.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

For October 1st*: A Golden Oldie… Because, Why Not?

The [coma-andante] walking coma, wants me to work
El coma andante, quiere que yo trabaje

Paying me a miserable salary
Pagándome un salario miserable

The walking coma wants me to applaud
El coma andante quiere que yo lo aplauda

After he talks his delirious shit
después de hablar su mierda delirante

No walking coma
No coma andante,

Don’t you eat this dick, walking coma
no coma uste´ esa pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

If you want me to work give me some money
Si quiere que trabaje pasme un varo por delante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

You are a tyrant and there’s no one who can stand you
Usted es un tirano y no hay pueblo que lo aguante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Walking coma, you hold elections
El coma andante, hace unas elecciones

that you invented to stay in power
que las inventó el pa´ perpetuarse

Walking coma, you want me to go and vote
El coma andante quiere que vaya y vote

To keep fucking myself over
para el seguir jodiendome bastante

No walking coma
No coma andante,

Don’t you eat this dick, walking coma
no coma uste´ esa pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

If you want me to vote give me a boat so I can leave
Si quiere que yo vote ponga un barco pa´ pirarme

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

You and your brothers cantankerous old fools
Usted y sus hermanos puros viejos petulantes

Don’t eat so much dick, walking coma
No coma tanta pinga coma andante

No, no… No coma tanta pinga
No, no… coma andante

No, no… No coma tanta pinga
No, no… coma andante

*The birthday of Communist China (68 today) and a lot of other things and people.

Biologist Ruiz Urquiola Arrested for Demanding Medicine for His Sister / 14ymedio

Biologist Ariel Ruiz Urquiola on hunger strike to demand medical treatment for his sister. (CubaNet)
Biologist Ariel Ruiz Urquiola on hunger strike to demand medical treatment for his sister. (CubaNet)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 6 November 2016 – On Sunday morning, the police arrested for the third time this week the researcher and marine biologist Ariel Urquiola, who has been holding a peaceful protest in front the National Oncology and Radiology Institute (INOR) since Thursday. He is demanding medical treatment for his sister, Omara Isabel Ruiz Urquiola, who is suffering from cancer.

According to what this newspaper was able to confirm, the specialist remained under arrest until five in the afternoon.

Shortly before his arrest he was received at the Oncological Hospital by its director, Dr. Luis Alfonso Curbelo, who notified him that the drug for his sister had arrived and would be administered this coming Tuesday. continue reading

Urquiola was dissatisfied and incredulous with this response and believes that, given that all this time the patient has been injecting herself, the only thing they had to do was to give her the drug this Sunday or Monday, and so he decided to continue his protest until the matter is truly resolved.

As reported to this newspaper by Oscar Casanella, at three in the afternoon on Sunday, after an interrogation at the police station located in Zapata and C, Urquiola was taken to the emergency room at Fajardo Hospital where he was given a physical examination to determine that he had no injuries.

In communication with 14ymedio, Urquiola’s sister explained that so far he has not been allowed to see his family for the duration of the arrest. “The officer in charge of this case is named Raul with a badge number 03734. I have told them I have nothing to talk to them about until they permit me to see him,” she said, shortly before he was released.

Urquiola’s sister suffers from invasive ductal carcinoma which is treated with two monoclonal antibodies every 21 days. For the completion of this immunotherapy she has lacked Trastuzumab (Herceptin).

The drug, which has been supplied for more than 20 years by the Ministry of Public Health (MINSAP), is manufactured by Roche pharmaceuticals. According to the family of the patient the absence of this drug is attributable to the Ministry of Public Health and the representation of the Swiss firm in Cuba.

Since Thursday, Ariel Urquiola has not taken food or drink and has been accompanied days by several civil society activists in solidarity with his demands. Among them are Gorki Águila, Eliecer Avila, Rudy Cabrera, Oscar Casanella, Claudio Fuentes, Antonio González Rodiles, Ailer González, Boris Gonzalez and Yanelis Nunez.

Biologist Ariel Urquiola, D.Sc., was expelled from the University of Havana after being deprived by the administration of his scientific project, arguing that he was not “trustworthy” because of his political leanings.

In the afternoon, the biologist was released, but vowed to continue his hunger strike until the reasons why he initiated it are resolved. However he agreed to withdraw from the site he had occupied in front of the hospital.

Gorki Águila: “The Castro Regime Wants To Mutate Into A Perfect Tyranny” / EFE – 14ymedio

The musician Gorki Águila, leader of Porno para Ricardo. (EFE)
The musician Gorki Águila, leader of Porno para Ricardo. (EFE)

14ymedio biggerEFE (via 14ymedio), 29 September 2016 — The dissident and leader of the Cuban punk-rock band Porno para Ricardo, Gorki Águila, said in Miami on Thursday that the “plan” of the Cuban regime is “to mutate into a perfect tyranny” with an “image much more whitewashed before the world. ”

The government of “the Castros needs a lot of money, and they are taking good advantage of this situation,” Águila told EFE, speaking in reference to an economic opening to foreign investment on the island, at the end of a news conference at the Institute of Cuban Studies and Cuban Americans, at the University of Miami (UM). continue reading

The event was attended by Cuban dissidents, activists from exile and leaders and legislators of the Cuban-American community in Miami who expressed their commitment to the Todos por Cuba Libre/All for Free Cuba campaign, an initiative that will be presented this coming October 11 in Miami to demand “real change… toward freedom”

Águila, like other participants, bluntly criticized the widespread view in the United States that encouraging commercial investment on the island will support openings toward freedom and the restoration of the rights of Cubans.

“The Castro regime is a Mafioso regime and to place real confidence in them is impossible. Their whole lives they have lied and betrayed,” said the activist and musician who asked, skeptically, “How are you going to do business with the Castros and think that freedom is going to be possible at some point?”

He said that the current worsening of repression on the island is not only against dissidents, but also against the self-employed who have shown their discontent with the stifling of and restrictions on their activities by the authorities.

Referring to his own case as a musician and composer, Águila said he is “deeply censored” and watch by a coercive power that bans him from performing in Cuba. “To me, they say it very clearly: you are not going to play in this country,” he denounced.

“I can’t play or even practice in my own home. There is a surveillance camera on an electric pole aimed at my balcony. They have me under total surveillance and I don’t even remember my last attempt to play in Cuba,” he said indignantly.

Despite all these calamities, Águila was “optimistic” about the crucial historical change being pushed by Cubans, what the musician called a “Cuba with two shores.”

For his part, the regime opponent Antonio Gonzalez-Rodiles, director of the critical forum Estado de Sats (State of Sats) stressed the importance of galvanizing the fact that all Cubans are “fed up” with the system at a time when, he warned, the “regime is trying to effect a transfer of power.”

A “transfer” that, according to the press conference remarks of the ex-political prisoner Jorge Luis García Pérez – known as “Antúnez” – should be called “an intended dynastic succession” of a regime that has imposed a “single, criminal and genocidal blockade for sixty years” on Cuban society.

Antúnez, who is also national secretary of the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Resistance Front, was very confident that the Todos por Cuba Libre/All for Free Cuba campaign will be a “great success and give fuel to those fighting for freedom.”

Claudio Fuentes, a dissident photographer from the Forum for Rights and Freedoms, expressed disappointment at the “voices” who express their enthusiasm for opening Cuba to foreign investment, as long as it is obvious that “without freedom there is no prosperity.”

Gorki Aguila Detained and Interrogated Returning To Cuba From US / 14ymedio

Musician Gorki Aguila (Photo EFE)
Musician Gorki Aguila (Photo EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 11 March 2016 — Gorki Águila, a musician with the band Porno Para Ricardo, has denounced that he was detained and questioned Thursday at Jose Marti airport in Havana, on his arrival from the United States.

Speaking to 14ymedio, Aguila said that the State Security agents who interrogated him initially presented themselves as immigration officers, and were even wearing those uniforms, but when he told them they were from the political police they put him in a room where he was threatened, telling him, “If you up the ante, we’re going to raise it higher still.” continue reading

Aguila said that, after the interrogation, on collecting his suitcases, he found that his luggage had been searched. “They read it item by item, inspecting every piece and they really concentrated on anything with writing, like T-shirts with the group’s logo. They took photos of everything, placing a sign with a number next to every item.”

“They detained me and threatened me in every way they know how. They did an exhaustive search, very exhaustive at Customs,” said the musician, in a phone interview with Radio Marti News.

Aguila, a regime opponent as well as an artist, was held for 4 or 5 hours and T-shirts were messages such as “Todos Marchamos” (We All March) and “Boitel and Zapata Tamayo, assassinated by Castro” were confiscated.

“State Security asked me if I had plans to go and see the Rolling Stones,” Gorki added. The rocker accused the authorities of having threatened his daughter and with not being allowed to travel any more.

When the musician was asked why he thought this situation happened, he replied, “They are very concerned with President Obama’s visit to Cuba. They want to try to show a peaceful country, they want to put on a show, a circus with happy and contented people.”

The activist Lia Villares, who arrived on a later flight, also was detained for nearly three hours at airport customs, her luggage and carefully checked and several CDs of the group Porno Para Ricardo were confiscated, along with T-shirts with slogans such as “Down with you know who.”

Martí News reports that several opponents claim Villares is continuing to be held.

Gorki Aguila Released After Several Hours of Detention / Diario de Cuba

diariodecubalogoDiario de Cuba, Havana, 8 November 2015 — The musician Gorki Águila was released on Saturday after being held for a few hours in the 5th police station in Playa municipality in Havana. Águila was arrested with two French journalists who were also released.

As he explained in statements to Radio Marti, the reason for the arrest was his wearing a shirt with the phrase “Down with you-know-you” while he was being interviewed on the street by journalists.

“People (agents) follow me and one of the minions spoke with State Security, so that was why we were stopped,” said Águila.

After two hours in the cells, the musician had an interview with a member of the State Security, according to the artist, and threatened him, “in the form of advice” to stop any kind of activism. “Same as always,” said Águila.

Musician Gorki Aguila Arrested Along With Two Foreign Journalists / 14ymedio

Musician Gorki Aguila (Photo EFE)
Musician Gorki Aguila (Photo EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 7 November 2015 — The musician Gorki Águila was arrested this afternoon in Havana, as he was traveling in a car with two journalists from the television channel France24. The composer and singer managed to call this newspaper from the Fifth Police Station in the Playa municipality, where he was taken with the two reporters.

Águila, leader of the punk rock band Porno para Ricardo, does not know why he has been arrested and when talking with 14ymedio the police still had not informed him whether he would remain in a cell in the station, or be fined or prosecuted. Last August the musician was detained for several hours in the same station, where he was warned that if continue his activism “those who invite you to visit another country will have to come to looking for you in a boat.”

In May, a similar incident occurred when Águila was forcibly detained outside the Museum of Fine Arts in Havana for carrying a poster with the image of the graffiti artist El Sexto along with the word “Freedom.

Mick Jagger Meets with Gorki From Porno Para Ricardo in Havana (NOT) / Fake News

2015-10-07_05.52.54Arsenio Rodríguez Quintana, Barcelona — On Sunday, October 4, after visiting the Cuban Art Factory in Havana, the Rolling Stones singer was walking with the rocker and Cuban government critic Gorki Aguila Carrasco along 5th Avenue, where the Ladies in White meet every Sunday and march in support of human rights in Cuba. Cuban State Security blocks Gorki from going to meet them, but last Sunday, the day of Orula, an orisha venerated in Cuba, the miracle happened. Gorki was wearing an El Sexto T-shirt that interested Jagger, who asked about El Sexto’s state of health after his hunger strike, and offered to buy some of his artworks to support him.

They also spoke about the possibility of Gorki opening for the Rolling Stones should the conversations with the Ministry of Culture for the Stones to play in the Karl Marx Theater bear fruit.

Now that so many American rock, pop and jazz musicians are coming to Havana, it is worth remembering that this city where I was born had home grown impresarios (from 1910 to 1959) that brought the best American or European musicians of their times to Cuba: Enrico Caruso, Nat King Cole or Lola Flores, for example.

The person who cut this ebb and flow between Havana and the world was Fidel Castro. For more than 50 years – except in 1978, another USA-Cuba political rapprochement, and in 1999. The Castro regime not only censored jazz and rock so that it would not come into Cuba, but also censored and imprisoned those who played it.

Jagger, regrettably was in Havana but he didn’t meet with Gorki, the news is false, but my dear friends Ailer and Lia Villares will perhaps smile at my autumn dreams from Barcelona.

“If You March this Sunday, You Won’t Leave the Country Again” / Cubanet, Camilo Ernesto Olivera

Gorki during a prior arrest in August 2008
Gorki during a prior arrest in August 2008

Ultimatum from the political police to musician Goki Aguila, participant in the peaceful marches of the Ladies in White.

cubanet square logoCubanet.org, Camilo Ernesto Olivera Peidro, Havana, 6 August 2015 – Tuesday, August 4, Gorki Aguila, leader of the punk band Porno for Ricardo, was visited at his home by an official from the PNR Sector (Revolutionary National Police). She tried, without success, to get Aguila to accept a badly drafted and irregular summons.

After that visit, on Wednesday at about midday, Gorki heard a knock on his apartment door. On opening, he found two police officers who were bringing orders to arrest him:

“I barely had time to make a couple of calls,” says the musician and host of the offline radio program Gear Shift. “Then, while I was being taken to the patrol car, I asked the agents the reason for the arrest. They did not know how to answer me.” continue reading

The patrol car took the route towards the well known Fifth Station in Playa township.

Kafka, in STASI version, according to State Security

“On arriving and being taken to the jail, I insisted that they explain why I was there. Then, the guard in charge of that area found out and told me: ‘You are here for an interview with CI (Counter-Intelligence).’ The other guards looked at me as if I were the most sought after criminal in Cuba. They said: ‘If CI summoned you, it is because they have something heavy against you.’ No one wanted to accept that I could be a prisoner just for thinking or acting politically differently.”

After more than two hours, Gorki was taken to an office inside the station itself. There he had a meeting with an officer from State Security who did not identify himself. This one, in a hectoring tone, threatened the musician:

“The agent told me: ‘If you go this next Sunday to the Ladies in White, you will never leave this country again. Those who have invited you to play in the United States are going to have to get you on a raft. I am personally going to make sure you are not able to leave from the airport.’”

Gorki thinks that “these officers are sick with impunity. They really believe that this system is going to last forever. Their bosses make them think that. We are all buried in a blend of the films ‘The Lives of Others’ and Kafka’s story ‘The Process,’” added the musician.

Gorki in his studio. (Photo by author)
Gorki in his studio. (Photo by author)

Porno Para Ricardo, the Ladies in White, Kerry and the Pope

The band Porno Para Ricardo is scheduled to travel to the US to join a tour. On prior occasions, the group’s musicians were held on the island by express order of Cuban security. Gorki has had to travel via Mexico and turn to session musicians hired by the sponsors in order to be able to perform.

“There are two important visits coming up which have these repressors very nervous. One of these is the American Secretary of State John Kerry. The other is Pope Francis in September. I don’t doubt that they are gearing up for a flash wave of repression. They will do it, as soon as they have the American flag waving at the embassy across from the Malecon,” he says.

At the beginning of July, Gorki Aguila debuted his theme entitled “Ladies in White” in Gandhi Park, near the Santa Rita Church. He did it surrounded by the respect and emotion of these brave women and the activist members of the Forum for Rights and Freedoms. A little latter, everyone marched in defiance of repression. They have continued to do so. They will do it again next Sunday.

About the Author: Camilo Ernesto Olivera Peidro

Translated by Mary Lou Keel

Police Warn Gorki Aguila He Will Not Leave Cuba If He Continues His Activism / 14ymedio

The musician Gorki Águila, leader of Porno para Ricardo. (EFE)
The musician Gorki Águila, leader of Porno para Ricardo. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 5 August 2015 – After several hours of being detained by the police, the musician Gorki Águila was released at around four in the afternoon on Wednesday. During his arrest he was taken to the Fifth Station in the Havana municipality of Playa where an official warned him that he would not leave Cuba again if he continued attending the Sunday marches of the Ladies in White, according to what Gorki told 14ymedio in a telephone conversation.

The rocker and leader of the band Porno para Ricardo detailed that they warned him that his arrest would be brief, but if he continued to pursue his activism, “Those who invite you to visit other countries will have to come looking for you in boat.”

Hours earlier, his daughter Gabriele had denounced that, “Yesterday at noon they brought a police citation, which he received but he refused to sign it because he didn’t know the reason behind it.” The police agents were looking for the rocker for a couple of hours today at noon; a call to the phone number 18806 — through which one can ask for information about any citizen detained — which did not reveal his whereabouts nor the reason for his arrest.

The last time the musician Gorki Águila slept in a cell was at the end of May, when he was arrested outside Havana’s Museum of Fine Arts for carrying a sign with the image of the graffiti artist El Sexto, with the word “freedom.” This Wednesday history was about to repeat itself.

 

They Arrest Gorki Aguila, Leader of the Rock Band Porno Para Ricardo / Cubanet, Camilo Ernesto Olivera

Gorki Aguila, file photo
Gorki Aguila, file photo
Cubanet.org, Camilo Ernesto Olivera Peidro, Havana, 5 August 2015 – Around noon Wednesday, musician Gorki Aguila was arrested, and his whereabouts are unknown.

The vocalist for the rock band Porno para Ricardo managed to communicate via telephone with this reporter just when two police officers presented themselves at the door of his home in order to take him. They did not explain the reason for his arrest or identify the place where they would take him.

Days earlier, law enforcement officers had approached Gorki Aguila’s house in order to bring him a police summons. Given apparent irregularities in the preparation of the document, the artist refused to sign it.

This arrest occurs within a few days of the arrival of the US Secretary of State, John Kerry, to Havana for the inauguration of the American Embassy.

Translated by MLK

About 70 Ladies in White and Activists Arrested Sunday / 14ymedio

The Ladies in White in Gandhi Park on a previous Sunday
The Ladies in White in Gandhi Park on a previous Sunday (Americateve)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, 19 July 2015 — This Sunday has led to the arrest of forty Ladies in White and thirty activists, at the conclusion of their usual march on 5th Avenue in the Havana neighborhood of Miramar.

After Mass in the church of Santa Rita, the Ladies in White gathered together with several activists in Gandhi park. There, from the speakers of a car, was heard a composition by the rocker Gorki Aguila, that pays tribute to these women and their human rights movement.

Gorki Aguila told 14ymedio  the song that just premiered, was produced in the studios of La Paja Records, managed by the group Porno for Ricardo. In addition to the melody of a cello, the musical theme includes strings, guitar, bass, drums and a solo by Aguila himself.

According to the artist “the intention was to give to the Ladies another song, to encourage other artists to make artworks to them, they deserve it.”

The renowned musician was taken to the so-called Vivac de Calabazar prison with Jorge Moya, Jorge Luis Antunez, Claudio Fuentes, Egberto Escobedo and Antonio Gonzalez Rodiles, among others. The women may have been transferred to a detention center in Tarara, east of Havana, where they are routinely detained.

More than 70 Ladies in White and Activists Arrested / Diario de Cuba

Ladies in White in front of Santa Rita Church on a previous Sunday (fhrcuba)
Ladies in White in front of Santa Rita Church on a previous Sunday (fhrcuba)

Diario de Cuba, Havana, 7 June 2015 – Over 40 Ladies in White and some 27 activists were arrested this Sunday, the ninth of repressive operations in Havana, according to dissidents.

Among those arrested were the musician Gorki Aguila, the director of Estado de Sats, Antonio Rodiles, photographer Claudio Fuentes and artist Tania Bruguera, who has already been released, according to the activist Ailer Gonzalez.

Other Ladies in White and opponents were arrested on leaving their homes, or forced to remain in them, according to the dissident Martha Beatriz Roque. continue reading

Gonzalez, artistic director of State of Sats, said she was able to talk with Antonio Rodiles when he was led into a State Security “paddy wagon,”, along with nine other men, and taken to the criminal prosecution center known as “Vivac.”

“He told me that his arrest had been violent and that they had put him in a chokehold,” she told Diario de Cuba.

Given the continued repression against the Ladies in White and the activists who support them when they attend Sunday Mass at Havana’s Santa Rita Church and undertake their walks down Quinta Avenue, supporters inside and outside the island carried out a campaign on Twitter using the hashtag #TodosMarchamos (We All March).

The initiative seeks to break the silence on the current repression in Cuba despite the regime’s negotiations with the United States and the European Union.

“This is a resistance,” said Ailer Gonzalez about the activities of the Ladies in White and dissidents every Sunday. “Many believe it is exhausting, but it seems to me that it is about the right to demonstrate, not only for the release of political prisoners,” she added.

“With this resistance every Sunday we are demanding the right to peaceful demonstration in Cuba, which is something that they (the government) are terrified of. Therefore they are engaged in this sustained repression, because the day they let us walk more than 10 blocks, they know how many people are going to join in,” she said.