“We are also concerned about the fate of the writer Angel Santiesteban-Prats,sentenced to five years in prison on December 8, 2012, officially for “housebreaking and injuries” after a process in which the charges were fabricated and witnesses bought.

“An intellectual recognized in Cuban society, who has received several awards, the only thing Angel Santiesteban-Prats did was criticize the government in his blog, The Children Nobody Wanted.

“They could imprison him at any time. Finally, Reporters without Borders learned of the arrest on Feb. 5 in Havana, of Hector Julio Cedeno, just for having photographed a group of government inspectors who were harassing hawkers. The independent journalist is still in custody.

“Are these obstructions and persecutions really the critical debate that you defend?”

February 12 2013

Hector Julio Cedeño Negrin, another detailed Cuban independent journalist. Photo: Luis Felipe Rojas

We need to join our voices for this independent journalist who is not one of the best know in Cuba. I send this letter to Amnesty International, you can write your own:

Dear Sirs of AI:

This February 5 the independent journalist Héctor Julio Cedeño Negrín was arrested taking photos of an abuse committed by State Inspectors against independent workers in the streets of this city.

Cedeño Negrín reported via telephone from a police station to the “Hablemos Press” Press Agency that the soldiers and members of the inspectors corp threatened him, he returned to his house for a camera and tried to capture the harassment being committed, but he was beaten by several of those present and during his arrest he tore the shirt of a police officer who was hitting him, and now the want to charge him. Those are the facts. Continue reading →

Héctor Julio Cedeño Negrin. Photo: Luis Felipe Rojas

Héctor Julio Cedeño Negrin, a native of Banes, Holguin will be sixty years old in three months. Cedeño Negrin declared a hunger strike on Tuesday February 5, on being arbitrarily arrested while taking photographs of police abuse in Havana, where he has lived for more than five decades.

Cedeño Negrin told Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez of Hablemos Press that he feels weak and has some dizziness. “An officer of the political police officer came to see me in the cell, but no one else has communicated to me about my arrest. It is a small cell of 9’ x 12’,” he told the news agency, adding that he continues not to take food or water.

The freelance writer has repeatedly denounced abuses of the Ladies in White, human rights activists and the general public, specifically in the district of Jesus Maria, a neighborhood with difficult living conditions in Habana Vieja.

Cedeño Negrin is not one of the better known independent journalists from the Cuban alternative press, for this reason it is necessary to make an urgent call the international organizations responsible for ensuring freedom of the press and protecting internal dissidents and regime opponents. Cedeño Negrin has also been arrested when he went to show solidarity with his brothers in the struggle at the times of arrests, beatings or hunger strikes.

This is the time to be with him in the defense of his rights.

February 12 2013

The novelist Daniel Morales

The literary desert that Miami was considered to be a few years ago is ending. On Friday night, February 8, the La Otra Esquina de las Palabras (The Other Corner of Words) hosted Daniel Morales who presented his novel La casa del sol naciente (The House of the Rising Sun) (Homagno 2011).

Among the fragments of his minimalist prose and the winks at a phantom country everyone associates with Cuba, we can discover a narrator with the strength to tell the truth, enter the premises of the imagination and create for us a world of realities that belongs to us for having lived it or having lost it forever in exile, disillusionment and the death of hope. La casa… finds its breeding grounds in those atrocious years of the 70s and 80s, the marginalization and the institutionalized repression against anything that smelled “foreign.” It is a well constructed narrative body and only someone with Daniel’s patience can go so far… and so well.

La Otra Esquina de las Palabras is a gift to us from the poet Joaquín Gálvez, a place for book lovers and bohemian Miami. Located in the courtyard of Café Demetrio, Joaquin specified that the night was dedicated to the writer Angel Santiesteban, who is in Cuba with the terror of the sword of Damocles hanging over his head.

Any afternoon a little man dressed in blue might appear to nicely ask him to accompany him to the dungeons to serve his five-year sentence.

The reason? In the absence of evidence, the withdrawn charges by his accusing ex-wife, and the testimony before the cameras of a false witness, a police expert decided that Angel’s handwriting, the slant of his letters, revealed that he was lying.

On the night of February 8, the fiery words of Idabel Rosales, and the presence of Santiesteban’s sister and his friends was an act of human solidarity. The results of the sale of the book have been sent to Angel, and more, according to those closest to him.

A couple of years ago when this odyssey began an excellent Cuban narrator said something like: “They say that Angel is the center of attention,” which then was only rumors. Now the fire has grown and consumed not only his house but those of all who believe ourselves to be his friends, needing only to rise within the voices of those who accompanied him to literary soirees, to the projects to find young writers, and those who believed they could constitute a learned republic with room for all: those who applaud without being asked and the restless, those who already make up a long blacklist.

From left to right, Aimara Perez, Angel Santiesteban’s sister, and the promoter Idabel Rosales

Joaquin Galvez introduces Daniel

All photos by Luis Felipe Rojas

February 9 2013

On Monday the ExpresArte in Freedom project announced the results of its first contest for literature and art, “Cuba 2020,” in which the contestants participated with essays and images (illustrations, caricatures, graphic designs, etc.) about the way they imagine life on the Island in 2020.

Adults and young people living in Cuba were invited to participate with their points of view about any aspect of Cuban life 2020. The winners were selected on the basis of creativity, originality and quality of their work by a jury made up of international experts.

Adult Category (Literature)

First Place: “Kabbalahs for an imagined Cuba.”

Second Place: “Delirium”

Juvenile Category (Literature)

First Place: “Memoirs of a dissident (fragments).”

Second Place: “Cuba 2020″ and “Cuba-Freedom.”

Adult Category (Art)

First Place: “Cuba in the skin” and “Heaven desired.”

Second Place: “AOT … After our time”

Juvenile Category (Art)

Firs Place: “The chains are broken.”

Second Place: “Intensive care” and “A Free and Prosperous Cuba.”

The winners will be awarded with the publication of their work. Furthermore, in the adult division, the first place in each category will receive 500 CUC in cash and the second place 300 CUC. In the youth division, the first place in each category will receive a laptop computer and the second place, an iPod Touch with five digital books or five movies. The authors and artists will be informed by the organizers via email.

February 5 2013

All photos: Luis Felipe Rojas

January 11 2013

Kill the dissonant word. Uproot the voice that stands out in the stone choir of prescribed hymns. This is the mission of the censors. To kill the free and fresh word.

January 28 2013

FREE the Lady in White Sonia Garro Alfonso NOW! Poster by Rolando Pulido

The case of the arbitrary arrest of Sonia Garro and her husband Ramon Alejandro is confusing for several reasons. That she belongs to the well-known group the Ladies in White and he to an independent Afro-Cuban organization, highlights lack of tactics or support (or both) by our internal dissent.

Recognized international institutions have raised the alarm at such injustice, but what has happened inside Cuba? The recent case of a protest against the police for the arrest of well-known figures like Yoani Sánchez, Antonio Rodiles and Angel Santiesteban (respectively: a receiver of many awards, a new rising star and prize-winning writer) among others, demonstrated what a nonviolent force can achieve pushing back against a repressive government.

In the case of Garro and her husband there has been a lack of actions to pressure the government from the dissident circles where they were recently active before being imprisoned, that is specific actions, specific public planned demands with the idea of exposing their situation to international public opinion.

Just because they are two almost unknowns they should not be neglected, left to their fate; a demand organized in stages, starting with the issuing of letters to the authorities, appearing before every police station, and a call by a considerable part of the internal opposition could pressure the authorities with a different urgency. Continue reading →