Luz Escobar – Page 4 – 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.

____________

COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.

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.”

____________

Cuban State Security Continues to Harass Activists After the July 11 Protests

Sadiel González was taken out of his house in handcuffs on Monday night and his family is still unaware of the legal situation in which he finds himself. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 4 August 2021 — “If you have nothing to hide, come join us, let’s talk”. With the arrogance that characterizes the political police in Cuba, several agents showed up at Sadiel González’s house to take him away this Monday.

He’s not the only one. Since July 11^th, social networks have been flooded with posts denouncing the arbitrary arrest of dozens of Cubans who filmed or participated in the protests.

This Sunday afternoon, González had broadcast live images of young people on the streets of Old Havana with the text: “Barrio de Jesús María, youth poured into the streets. Patria y Vida [Homeland and Life]“. As of this Tuesday, he still has not been released, so his relatives and friends fear that he is being detained.

The “visit” of State Security to his home occurred after nine o’clock at night, at which time the city of Havana initiates a curfew that prohibits citizens from going out into the street or moving from a place to another.

On his Facebook profile, González was able to denounce, through a live broadcast, the moment when the agents arrived, arrested him and took continue reading

him to the police station without presenting a warrant. When the young man, a resident of the municipality of 10 de Octubre, complained to the authorities that he must be summoned at least 24 hours in advance, the agent replied “you’re leaving with me now.”

“Sadiel, you are making it difficult for me (…) if you have nothing to hide, please join us (…) we are going to talk to the police”, said the officer, who identified himself as “the head of State Security in the municipality”.

As confirmed to ‘14ymedio’ by independent reporter Iliana Hernández, Sadiel González participated in the April 30^th protest and in the one on July 11^th

In the video, the activist’s mother is heard saying that they are taking him “to the sixth station” while the man specifies: “It’s an interview mother, don’t worry.” When González finally comes out to the police patrol in handcuffs, with the officers, the State Security agent explains to his mother:

“Your son is committing counterrevolutionary acts, about a month or two ago he was involved in a counterrevolutionary provocation in Havana (the Obispo Street protest of April 30^th) and we have been following him since that date. Today your son did a direct one, inciting the people to carry out violent acts and to hold demonstrations. He is inciting the population to take to the streets”.

He also told her that, after July 11^th, everything that her son has been doing “is wrong… He is telling lies, saying that it was a demonstration when all it was were young people playing in the street, he is manipulating information and that is a crime”, referring to a live broadcast carried out on Monday afternoon from the Jesús María neighborhood in Old Havana.

“I arrived with a lot of respect, but I almost had to threaten him to open the door for me, I told him ‘either you open the door or I’m looking for an order to knock it down’, (which I can do, too). If I come with an order and I knock down the door, how would you feel? With what money will you fix that? the officer added and concluded: “We cannot allow what your son is doing.”

As confirmed to 14ymedio by independent reporter Iliana Hernández, Sadiel González participated in the April 30^th protest and in the one on July 11^th.

Of the demonstrators who protested on Obispo Street, seven are still detained, awaiting trial and, as of this week, and have been deprived of liberty for three months. All were arrested on April 30^th at the demonstration on Obispo Street when they tried to get to the house of artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, who was on his sixth day of a hunger and thirst strike so that the siege to which State Security has subjected him would cease. During this protest, the participants shouted “Homeland and Life” and “Down with communism”.

Reporter Esteban Rodríguez, ADN Cuba correspondent, is in the Combinado del Este prison; activist Thais Mailén Franco Benítez, is imprisoned in the Guatao women’s prison, in La Lisa, Havana; Christian youth Yuisán Cancio Vera, is in the Combinado de la Construcción Augusto César Sandino Prison, in Pinar del Río; and Inti Soto Romero in the Taco Taco Prison.

Ángel Cuza Alfonso also remains in jail while journalist Mary Karla Arés and activists Nancy Vera and Leonardo Romero Negrín are under a precautionary measure of house arrest.

Other activists who have taken to the streets to protest peacefully are also in prison awaiting trial. This is the case of Luis Robles Elizastigui, the young man arrested on December 4^th during a protest on Havana Boulevard. His brother, Landy Fernández Elizastigui, reported to 14ymedio this Tuesday that he has not received calls from him for almost a month.

“I still haven’t received a call from Luis since last July 4^th,” he told this newspaper. He also said that the lawyer had received a new refusal of a change of precautionary measure that he requested last month but that he presented a new one on August 2^nd.

“The lawyer showed me a new application that he presented this August 2^nd and it is based on the words of the President of the Supreme Court, who said in a press conference on July 24^th that thinking differently, questioning what the process is doing, or demonstrating does not constitute a crime”, he pointed out.

Human rights groups such as Amnesty International, the Inter-American Press Association, the Committee to Protect Journalists, the United States government, the European Parliament, and the International PEN have spoken in favor of the immediate release of the Cuban protesters.

Translated by Norma Whiting

_______________

Cuban Political Police Claim the Power to Vaccinate

The first few minutes with the young medical student were very uncomfortable. She was looking at her cell phone and I was looking at mine. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 23 July 2021 — Last night I was thinking over and over again that when morning dawned I would have to go to the doctor’s office to receive the third dose of the Abdala candidate vaccine. It would not be a problem for anyone to walk a hundred meters and receive an injection, but for the past 13 days I have had a State Security officer guarding the entrance of my house and preventing me from leaving.

This morning, at 9:40, I tried to leave my house but, when I reached the ground floor of the building, the policeman got up from his chair and repeated, mechanically: “You can’t go out.”

“Today I have to receive my third dose of Abdala so I must and will go out,” I replied. But the agent does not understand explanations. It was like trying to convince a wall. “If you have to go to the office, wait for me to call the patrol right now to take you,” he said.

“There’s no way I’m getting into a police car as if I were a criminal,” I replied. “Then I will go with you,” he answered.

The doctor’s is one block away, I opened the door of the building and went out. The man walked beside me, commented on the weather, and at fifty meters he told me that we had “different ideals.” I didn’t continue reading

answer him.

At 9:45 a.m. I arrived at the doctor’s office, a small room with several chairs and, in the same entrance, a table where a young second-year medical student had the task of taking the blood pressure and temperature of all those who arrive, before registering the name on a spreadsheet.

I asked who was the end of the line, a man answered me and I sat down. The young student told me that it was also necessary to wait at least ten minutes for the person to recover from the exertion of the walk. As I sat down, the officer approached the girl and said something in her ear, she got up and looked for the doctor. The upshot of that conversation was that I was told to walk past the dozen or so people who were waiting.

Annoyed, almost ashamed of having to skip the line, mostly elderly, I went to the doctor who asked for my identity card and vaccination card. After a few brief questions, he jabbed my shoulder with a syringe while I was still dumbfounded and annoyed. Then I was left to wait in another room for an hour to monitor any adverse reactions.

But State Security has its own protocols that do not obey medical or scientific logic. A few minutes after being there, the policeman burst into the room and said: “No, let’s go to your house now.”

The doctor ended up giving in to his pressure, gave me back the documents and again I walked the short distance that separated me from my house, with that impertinent shadow to one side.

Before entering the elevator, the police officer had the nerve to try to make amends for the violation of my privacy and the disrespect he had committed toward the health regulations: “Sorry for the bad time I put you through,” he said, while I was just thinking about my two daughters, trusting that their mother had only gone to “get a jab” and that I would return as soon as possible.

No sooner had I entered my apartment and without being able to process all that, they knocked on my door. On the other side were the State Security officer, the nurse, and the young medical student who had received me at the vaccination center. They asked me if it was possible to “monitor” my physical situation at home. The two women came in.

The nurse left and the first minutes with the young woman were very uncomfortable. She was looking at her cell phone and I was looking at mine. I offered her coffee but she declined, she says she doesn’t like it and she brought her thermos with water. We don’t talk much, we barely exchange a few words, cordial, routine. At 10:45 am the nurse came to pick her up and they left.

The State Security officer is still on the ground floor of the building, and I don’t know how many more days he will stay. Outside at the corner there is a patrol car ready in case I break out in an attack of rebellion and try to leave, despite the warnings. This is the context that surrounds me since July 11 when thousands of Cubans took to the streets to ask for just what I need now: Freedom.

____________

Released and Awaiting Trial, Cuban Chess Player Arian Gonzalez

González receiving a prize in Portugal in 2020. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, July 22, 2021 — The Spanish-Cuban Grand Master Arián González was released this Thursday after spending more than ten days in detention on the island for participating in the protests of July 11, his wife Massiel Hernández confirmed to 14ymedio. The chess player, who faces trial soon, is charged with the crime of “disrespect,” Hernández said.

At the time of his release, González was in La Pendiente prison, in the province of Villa Clara, where he was held after his arrest and carried out a hunger strike for several days.

The 32-year-old chess player, residing in Orense, Spain, arrived on the island at the beginning of July to take care of his mother, who is diabetic and lives in the Villa Clara municipality of Camajuaní. Like so many thousands of others, he joined the demonstrations last week, with the difference that he did it alone, and got no support from of any of his neighbors. continue reading

Regarding González’s arrest, his colleague Leinier Domínguez said: “I know that in addition to being a brilliant and talented chess player, he is an excellent person. Far from being a criminal, he is right at the other extreme, the good one, that of virtue and decency.”

In turn, former world chess champion Garry Kaspárov asked the Spanish authorities on Wednesday to comment on the case of Grand Master Arián González.

“Are there updates on the arrest in Cuba of a Cuban/Spanish citizen, Grandmaster Arian González? He was there visiting his ill mother. Has Spain been silent about the latest crackdown on human rights in Cuba?” he wrote on Twitter.

Kasparov thus responded to another message on social media in which the Ecuadorian chess player Carla Heredia had tagged him. “Our friend and colleague GM Arian González needs us, chess players around the world to speak up. Hopefully Kasparov can send his solidarity to Arian and bring attention to this case,” commented Heredia.

At the moment, different groups and entities have expressed their concern about the situation of the chess player. Meanwhile the Embassy and the Consulate General of Spain in Havana contend that they are limited because he is a person who has dual nationality.

On social media, several chess players criticized the arrests recorded during the protests on the island against the increasing food shortages during the pandemic. One of them, Sandro Pozo Vera, asked “all the people of Camaguey in exile” to share his post “to get our brave brother out of prison,” referring to González.

For its part, the Liceo Academia Postal de Orense club, where González plays, sent a letter to the Cuban ambassador in Madrid conveying its “concern and desire” that “as soon as possible” the chess player can return to Galicia, where He has lived for about five years, after a long stay in Catalonia.

The Spanish Chess Federation also contacted both the Higher Sports Council and the Cuban Chess Federation to check on González’s situation.

The chess player, who won the Spanish University Championship and who combines chess classes with law practice, planned to return to Galicia in August and compete in the Marcote Chess Memorial, which will take place from August 15 to 22.

Translated by Tomás A.

____________

Cuban Citizens Mobilize to Help the Province of Matanzas

A part of the medicines and medical supplies collected through these campaigns has reached Matanzas this week. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 10 July 2021 — Cuban citizens have mobilized to help Matanzas, the province with the most serious situation due to COVID-19. Cuban emigrants, opponents, activists and international organizations are compiling donations and also advocating for the creation of a humanitarian corridor to Cuba in the face of the acute health crisis that the country is experiencing.

Dozens of complaints in different provinces, mainly Matanzas, have shown the collapse of hospitals, deaths of covid patients in homes, lack of medicines and medical supplies and insufficient attention from the Cuban health system. With the hashtag #SOSCuba, social networks have made dozens of these cases visible.

For its part, the Council for Democratic Transition in Cuba, recently created in Cuba, issued a Declaration of Humanitarian Crisis this Saturday in which it states that “the chaotic health situation in Matanzas” reflects “a triple crisis” in Cuba: of leadership, of model and of human rights.” continue reading

“It is cruel nonsense that many of our countrymen don’t have the necessary and basic resources to successfully face the COVID-19 pandemic and that the Government prevents others from helping, and even persecutes those who try to help the ones who need it most,” denounced the Council, made up of opponents, activists and independent journalists.

In addition, they expressed their support for the position of the Free Cuban Medical Association that requests “an urgent humanitarian intervention” in Cuba, and for the campaign promoted by Cuban emigrants who “ask the Government of Cuba, solely responsible for this crisis, to create a humanitarian aid corridor to alleviate the consequences of a self-inflicted disaster situation.”

“It is cruel nonsense that many of our countrymen don’t have the necessary and basic resources to successfully face the COVID-19 pandemic”

Contrary to accepting aid from Cubans outside the island, from international organizations or from other countries, “the government continues to be stuck in a mixture of arrogance and immature petulance, believing that only it can face a complex situation.” The result of this refusal, continues the Council, is “the combination of a potential famine with a health crisis on automatic pilot”, denounces the Council.

From Spain, with the tags #SOSCuba, #SOSMatanzas and #CorredorHumanitarioYa, several activists have created, on digital platforms such as Change.org, appeals to request logistical support and diplomatic mediation in the creation of a humanitarian corridor to Cuba. This is the case of the initiative managed by Massiel Rubio to send medicines and medical supplies from Madrid.

According to Rubio, the donations “are used to buy and pay for supplies and shipments that go directly to the neediest people.” He also assures that the aid is reaching Cuba thanks to people who “have donated their kilograms(i.e. luggage weight allowance)” when flying to the country.

Since last April, Rubio, along with other activists and artists, had demanded this corridor from the Government of Miguel Díaz-Canel. They demanded the opening of “humanitarian flights” in view of “the serious health crisis, shortages of medicine, food and cleaning products” that Cuba is undergoing.

In midweek, the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FHRC) advocated for international solidarity and the support of Cubans living abroad, in the face of “the COVID-19 catastrophe in Cuba” that “has exposed the nation’s pre-existing problems and plunged the country into an extreme humanitarian crisis.”

The NGO (Non-Government Organization) calls on Cuban authorities “to enable and support the cohesive flow of material and human resources” of Cuban emigrants and to help implement a “civic and solidarity chain” that includes humanitarian naval flights and transportation. It also affirms that “this tragedy can be an opportunity for everyone to demonstrate in practice their love for the country above their mutual differences. To block shipments would be a crime against humanity.”

The regime’s response has not been long in coming. The official press and voices related to the Government have described these campaigns as “opportunistic,” and consider them an instrument for “discrediting” the Cuban health system.

“The COVID-19 catastrophe in Cuba has exposed pre-existing national problems and precipitated the country into an extreme humanitarian crisis”

Official journalist Arleen Rodríguez Derivet, one of the directors of the Roundtable, insisted that the “#SOSMatanzas” initiative is “a campaign that looks very well organized” and that it tries to “raise alleged humanitarian motives to carry out humanitarian aggressions” and then “military interventions.” Rodríguez made her statements on her program Chapeando Bajito, which is broadcast on Radio Rebelde station.

Johana Tablada, Cuba’s Deputy Director General for the United States in the Ministry of Foreign Affairs also posted on Twitter that “the real objective of some who today promote” such campaigns as the humanitarian corridor for Cuba is “to divert attention from the main responsibility of the US blockade that threatens the well-being, integrity, life and health of our population every day.”

This Saturday, at a press conference, Dr. Francisco Durán, National Director of Epidemiology, considered it an “important” measure to extend, from seven to fourteen days, the isolation of travelers arriving through the Varadero and Cayo Coco airports. The provision, which will begin to be implemented on July 15^th, was also confirmed by the Civil Defense, which clarified that these travelers are limited to entering the country with only one piece of luggage “to reduce handling.”

Durán also specified that 6,750 positive cases of covid and 31 deaths were confirmed this Friday, figures that represent two new records in these daily reports. Of the total number of cases, 2,657 were registered in Matanzas, the province with the highest number of infections at this time.

Translated by Norma Whiting

____________

Cuban State Security Mobilizes to Prevent a Protest in Favor of Hamlet Lavastida

Young actor Daniel Triana was the only person who could reach the proposed location and was arrested at the entrance of the National Museum of Fine Arts. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 7 July 2021 — Several independent artists and journalists were detained this Wednesday by Cuban State Security agents to prevent them from carrying out a protest action in solidarity with the artist Hamlet Lavastida, who has been under arrest in Villa Marista since June 26^th. The action proposed a sit-in in front of the National Museum of Fine Arts at one in the afternoon this Wednesday.

Artists Katherine Bisquet and Camila Lobón were arrested when they tried to leave their home in Centro Habana, while reporter Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho was arrested near the National Museum of Fine Arts.

Art historian Carolina Barrero was also arrested when leaving her home and she is still being held at the Infanta and Manglar unit, according to the testimony of Valdés Cocho.

“Camila Lobón and Katherine Bisquet Rodríguez are in the Zanja station. I could see them and we made the sign of freedom with our hands. They took me out of Zanja Street so that I wouldn’t be in the same place as them. In Infanta and Manglar I met Carolina Barrero, we were able to intertwine fingers despite a call for attention from the officers who were guarding her,” the reporter said in a post on Facebook after being released a few hours later. continue reading

Bisquet was the one who launched the call to protest, and the text reads: “We call on friends and colleagues to demand the release of Hamlet, taking the pertinent health-protective measures at a sit-in in front of the Museum of Cuban Art this Wednesday, July 7^th at 1 pm. The acts of punishment and repression will continue as long as we give up the ground of our rights to the Government. Let’s come together to defend Hamlet, which is to defend ourselves, and defend ourselves as a community. Let us not abandon ourselves.”

The artist also explained that Lavastida’s relatives have not yet received the judicial resolution from the Prosecutor’s Office, a document without which it is impossible to hire the services of a lawyer.

In a short video shared by Lobón and Bisquet on their social networks, can be seen the moment when a State Security officer prevents them from leaving the house and asks two other officers to arrest them for not following his orders

Young actor Daniel Triana, the only person who could reach the proposed protest location, told 14ymedio that he was arrested at the entrance of the Museum, a few minutes after arriving and sitting down. They took him under arrest to the Infanta y Manglar station and released him after a few hours.

“I arrived and they took me within minutes, there was no one else. I saw a colleague go by, but he kept going, it seems that he was investigating. They did not show me a warning sign, only a person from the performing arts spoke to me who said that he was going to attend to me from now on,” says Triana.

In a short video shared by Lobón and Bisquet on their social networks, the moment can be seen when a State Security officer prevents them from leaving the house and asks two other officers to arrest them for not following his orders.

Katherine Bisquet is a poet who has published in Cuba such titles as Something Here Is Decomposing, from Editores Sur Collection, a volume that was mentioned in the Wolsan-Cuba Poetry Prize in 2013. Camila Lobón is a young visual artist who graduated in 2018 from the Arts University, former Higher Institute of Art (ISA) and is collaborator of the International Institute of Artivismo Hannah Arendt (Instar), founded by the artist Tania Bruguera.

Both are among the most visible faces of the last year in the defense of human rights in Cuba, especially after participating in the protest in front of the Ministry of Culture in November of last year which led to the creation of 27N.

Hamlet Lavastida arrived in Cuba from Germany on June 21^st, after completing an artistic residency at the Berlin gallery Kunstlerhaus Bethanien. The young man had already completed his six days of regulatory Covid isolation in one of the centers set up by the Government when he was arrested.

He is accused of the crime of “instigation to commit a crime” that can carry from fines of between 100 and 300 quotas* (which can imply between 100 and 15,000 pesos) to imprisonment from three months to a year. Organizations such as Human Rights Watch, PEN America or PEN International, as well as the Kunstlerhaus Bethanien have condemned Lavastida’s arrest and demanded his unconditional release.

*Translator’s note: The Cuban Penal Code sets fines in terms of “quotas” and in this way can change the amount of all fines simply by changing the amount of one “quota.”

_____________

Dozens of Cubans Demonstrate in Front of the UN to Demand Freedom for Political Prisoners

Among others, journalist Carlos Manuel Álvarez, teacher Omara Ruíz Urquiola and artists Luis Eligio D Omni, Javier Caso and Kizzy Macías participated in the protest. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 23 June 2021 — A group of Cubans demonstrated this Wednesday in front of the United Nations headquarters in New York to demand freedom for political prisoners, while the General Assembly prepared to vote on the annual resolution against the United States embargo on the Island. It received the support of 184 countries, the US and Israel voted against it and there were three abstentions: Colombia, Ukraine and United Arab Emirates.

The protest that took place near the UN building was attended by, among others, journalist Carlos Manuel Álvarez, professor Omara Ruíz Urquiola and artists Luis Eligio D Omni, Javier Caso and Kizzy Macías. “We are demanding that all political prisoners be released, that human rights and civic freedom be recognized. These are requirements to achieve a democratic country and to represent all Cubans, wherever they are,” said Cuban Tomás Castellanos during a live broadcast that the magazine El Estornudo aired from that location.

“We have decided today to give visibility to all Cubans who have expressed, in one way or another, their way of thinking that differs of course from the dictatorial Government line and who have paid the consequences for it,” he added. continue reading

The writer Carlos Manuel Álvarez used a reproduction of the Garotte Vil that artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara used to handcuff himself, in solidarity with the leader of the San Isidro Movement. Later, several of the protesters also approached the seat, where they were immobilized by the neck while their hands were handcuffed behind their back.

“The way in which we are here, projecting ourselves towards New York City, is neither gratuitous nor exaggerated,” said the writer in another of the broadcasts. “This is the faithful representation of how people live in Cuba. Cubans live with their hands tied and with a kind of club around their neck and subjugated by a regime that does not respect civil or individual rights.”

In the demonstration, the participants waved Cuban flags and a unique version of the national pennant, the work of Cuban artist Julio Llópiz-Casal. (14ymedio)

Other participants covered their heads with a paper box with the images of political prisoners such as Maykel Castillo Osorbo, Yuisán Cancio Vera, Luis Ángel Cuba Alfonso, Thais Mailén Franco Benítez, Esteban Lázaro Rodríguez López, Inti Soto Romero, Yeilis Torres Cruz and Adrián Coroneaux Stevens.

In the demonstration, participants waved Cuban flags and a unique version of the national pennant in blue, black and white, the work of Cuban artist Julio Llópiz-Casal and entitled Cuban flag for the spilled milk.

“The three blue stripes represent the three skies that protect the three Cuban social classes that we Cubans know very well: sky of the rich, sky of the poor and sky of the untouchables (rich or poor),” the artist explains in a manifesto that accompanies the piece. “The two black stripes represent the impurity of national ideals when they are sullied, manipulated, frustrated or contaminated with mediocrity, selfishness and lack of love towards Cuba. The lonely brown star represents the false sovereignty of the country when its destiny is determined by external interests and those of a handful of Cubans, “to which he adds that the white triangle” represents spilled milk: the mistakes made by Cubans in the name of their freedom, whether it was due to naivety or pride, resignation or fear.”.And he concludes: “Cuba is a state of mind. We are going to give Cuba a reason to feel good.”

Speaking to 14ymedio, the artist, who lives in Cuba, said that “we Cubans, who feel that the Island lives under an autocracy which sacrifices and violates the most elementary rights in the name of conserving its place in power, we don’t have much more than to perform symbolic gestures. A peaceful demonstration in the streets of Cuba and this protest at the UN headquarters are just that.”

While this was happening in New York, several artists woke up in Havana under State Security surveillance. Tania Bruguera, Carolina Barrero, Katherine Bisquet and Camila Lobón reported early in the morning that police officers were guarding their homes to prevent them from going out.

At the end of the protest, the participants moved in front of the Cuban Mission to the UN, where they stayed for several minutes and from a truck with three screens, they transmitted images of the repression in Cuba while shouting “freedom,” “homeland and life,” “down with the dictatorship,” among other slogans against the Government. Then they went out in a caravan throughout the city” so that everyone could get the message that there is a dictatorship in Cuba,” artist Douglas Arguelles Cruz explained in a live broadcast.

Translated by Norma Whiting
____________

Cuban Reporter Covering the Rape Case of a Minor Arrested for 24 Hours

The journalist was arrested this Thursday around two in the afternoon outside the Western Army Military Court in Arroyo Naranjo. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 18 June 2021 — Writer Jorge Enrique Rodríguez, a journalist for Diario de Cuba and a collaborator of the International Institute of Artivism Hannah Arendt (Instar), was released this Friday after being detained for 24 hours.

The journalist was arrested this Thursday around two in the afternoon outside the Western Army Military Court in Arroyo Naranjo, where the trial was held against six people accused of sexually abusing a child under 13 years of age, which took place in September of last year.

Rodríguez, who had not been heard from in 24 hours, tells 14ymedio that he was taken to the nearby El Capri station. “Members of the family of those involved were outside, and very aggressive,” he says. “All this time, they have said that the fault lies with the girl and her mother because they uploaded the complaint to social networks. When verifying that I was the journalist who was following the case, they got their contacts involved. A patrol car arrived immediately, one of the relatives approached it and the officer apparently called State Security. A few minutes later a female officer arrived, arrested me and took me to the station.” continue reading

When he arrived at the station, the journalist continues, he asked the reason for his arrest, and they answered that “it was because he was taking photos,” but Rodríguez denies it: “That is false, it was all a story the family of the accused made up.”

The girl’s mother, Cleida García Díaz, tells this newspaper that she herself has now “received death threats”

The girl’s mother, Cleida García Díaz, whom Cenesex (National Center for Sexual Education) contacted to investigate her case after the complaint she made in independent media, assures this newspaper that right now she has now received “death threats.”

“It was around seven o’clock at night when I left at the end of the trial, and all the relatives of the six accused were outside and they insulted me and told me that they were going to kill me,” he says. “The police officers who were there asked me to get in the car quickly, I did so and we immediately left.”

She also says that her husband had to be taken through the back door of the court, “through the exit where the prosecutors leave,” because the situation at that time “got ugly… Immediately, the whole block was full of patrol cars because the family members became very aggressive,” she points out.

The woman, who lives in the municipality of El Cotorro, in Havana, says that she filed a complaint about the threats, so that the police would be aware of everything and record the facts. “Now I rarely go out because I have a newborn baby, but I told them that I was not going to hide. What happened was very serious, they attacked me when I was leaving the court with my baby in my arms and they threatened me, it was horrible.”.

The woman, who lives in the Havana municipality of El Cotorro, says that she filed a complaint about the threats, so that the police would be aware of everything and record the facts

García specifies that the prosecutor’s office is asking for 21 years and six months for the three defendants who were undergoing military service at the time of the attack against his daughter, and 21 years for the other three, but the final sentence won’t be determined until July 5^th.

“I spoke the whole truth in court: that my daughter was threatened and harassed by these men. At the trial they reproached me because I made a complaint to the independent press, but I told them that I did it and that I do not regret it, because at that moment all the doors were closed and no one was giving me any answers. Where was my country at that moment that abandoned me like that?” she cries out.

Translated by Norma Whiting
____________

Maykel Castillo Was Able to Speak From Prison After Eight Days Incommunicado

The rapper Maykel ’Osorbo’ Castillo is accused of attack, public disorder and evading arrest and is in preventive prison in the province of Pinar Del Río. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 14 June 2021 — After eight days in solitary confinement, rapper Maykel Castillo, known as Osorbo, was able to speak this weekend with his colleague Eliexer Márquez Duany, who is called El Funky. Osorbo is imprisoned in the Cinco y Medio prison in Pinar del Río, awaiting trial for the alleged crimes of “attack,” “public disorder” and “evading arrest.”

“I spoke with him on Sunday and also on Saturday, which was his first call after eight days in solitary confinement,” El Funky told 14ymedio. “He told me he was okay and has a lot of faith that he will get out very soon.”

According to the artist, the two communications lasted only five minutes. Osorbo detailed that he had not been able to call because he was not allowed to because “the officers had orders that he could not make phone calls.” El Funky also said that “the things that the family has sent to the prison are not given to him in full, only the things they [prison authorities] decide.”

“Two packages have already been sent to him and from them they have given him only what they wanted to. They have not given him all the cigarettes, only the food,” El Funky denounced.

The curator Anamely Ramos, a member of the San Isidro Movement (MSI), directly accused State Security, in a Facebook post, of appropriating part of Osorbo’s belongings and also pointed out that they were harassing the people who had supported him by bringing what he needs to Pinar del Río.

“State security and citizen insecurity: Yesterday you let Maykel call after eight days. It was a hasty call, but to guess your steps a person doesn’t have to have a lot of time or be very intelligent,” said Ramos in his complaint.

Osorbo was arrested on May 18 at his home and it was not until two weeks later that he was transferred to Pinar del Río. Before his arrest, he was subjected to a constant police siege of his home that lasted for weeks, in which he was arrested for no reason every time he went out on the street.

The artist together with El Funky, Yotuel Romero, Descemer Bueno and the Gente de Zona duo launched the song Patria y Vida (Homeland and Life) three months ago , which has become an anthem and slogan in protests against the Government.

On April 4 on Damas Street, in Old Havana, the police tried to arrest Osorbo, but the neighbors helped him avoid arrest. The handcuffs hanging from the artist’s wrist became a symbol of the unusual protest.

____________

“The Police Have Kidnapped Me in My Home for 60 days,” Denounces Iliana Hernandez

A policeman and a State Security agent guard the surroundings of Iliana Hernández’s house, in Cojímar, Havana. (Capture)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Miami, 7 June 2021 — CiberCuba activist and reporter Iliana Hernández has been besieged for two months at her home by police and State Security agents. Not only do they prevent her from going out, but they also do not allow any of her friends to visit, and they have cut off her mobile data internet service.

In conversation with 14ymedio, Hernández points out that the last time she was able to leave her home was on April 8, but she ended up arrested on Obispo Street in Old Havana along with other activists. “Since the 9^th, I woke up surrounded by surveillance, until today,” she points out.

The journalist assures that in the 60 days that she has been in home detention, she has been “documenting the oppressors… Even at night, when they get close to my home, I record them,” she says. “On Sunday, one of them tried to hide behind a post so as not to appear in the video and in the end, his hiding was useless, because I later caught him around the corner. It is one of the best images I have of this repression.” continue reading

“They brought me to El Cerro in another patrol car and one of the security agents warned me not to go too far,” says Otero Alcántara

This Sunday, artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Art Historian Carolina Barrero tried to visit the reporter and ended up being detained by the officers who were part of the siege. “A block before, we saw a patrol car and we got out of the car we were in,” Otero Alcántara tells this newspaper. “Right there, the policeman told us that we couldn’t go to Iliana’s house and they put us in a patrol car and took us to the Cojímar police station. They brought me to El Cerro in another patrol car and one of the security officers warned me not to go that far.”

For her part, Barrero pointed out that she wanted to go see Hernández “because she has been inside the barricade for many days,” when in reality there isn’t “either a complaint, nor a process, nor a precautionary measure” which will legally prevent her from leaving her home. “I wanted to see her, bring her some things, have a coffee with her, so that she feels accompanied, and Luis Manuel told me that he wanted to go with me because he also wanted to see her,” she says.

Barrero details that the police had her sitting on a bench in the police station for a while, and after some time a patrol went to look for her and left her at her house in Old Havana. “Luckily, no security agent appeared, no one came to ask me anything,” she adds.

In an article denouncing in her social networks the arbitrariness that Hernández has experienced in recent weeks, Barrero pointed out that “the authority” that today is preventing Hernández from leaving her house “is not legitimate” and that “it is discredited for a lack of respect to rights and to the law itself.”

“What I found funniest was that they told me that they were masters of my life and writers of my destiny,” said reporter Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho

Journalist Héctor Luis Valdés Cocho was also arrested this weekend when he tried to visit Iliana. Upon reaching the corner of the reporter’s house, he was put in a patrol car that took him into custody at the Cojímar police station and then he was transferred to Infanta and Manglar, in El Cerro. “They wanted to draw up a warning report for violating a security action but I refused to sign it. They threatened me again by preventing me from going to a training course, confining me at home, inventing a cause to take me to jail,” Cocho complained to this newspaper.

“What I found funniest was that they told me that they were masters of my life and writers of my destiny,” noted the reporter, a contributor to the news portal ADN Cuba.

Iliana Hernández says that State Security would like her to leave Cuba but that they know perfectly well that she is not going to leave Cuba “forever”.

“They know it and that is why they still have me regulated [banned from traveling outside Cuba], they denied me the complaint I made to the Ministry of the Interior, the Supreme Court gave it no place, breaking all the laws because there is no justification for me to be regulated. I am not going to tell them that I want to leave and never return, this is my country and they do not own Cuba. They have kidnapped me but they are not the owners, we are recovering Cuba from the kidnapping,” she declares.

She also stated that right now for her “there is no idea” in her head other than to continue with her activism and her work as a reporter: “My priority is my country’s freedom and they are not going to get me to give up, they can be out there as long as they want, when I need to go out, I’m going to go out.”

On April 24, after two weeks of the police siege, a group of activists who went to visit her ended up being arrested, including Hernández herself who was accompanying them.

Translated by Norma Whiting

____________

Otero Alcantara Leaves Havana Hospital After a Month of Forced Confinement

Screen captures of a video that Otero Alcántara made when he left Havana’s Calixto García hospital this Monday. (Collage)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 31 May 2021 — “I am relatively well, from a physical point of view but, emotionally, [I am] worried about all my brothers,” Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara told CubaNet Noticias shortly after leaving Calixto García Hospital. The artist announced that health “tests” will be carried out outside the “control of State Security.”

The chronology of what he has lived through in the last four weeks begins to become clear. After arriving at the hospital on May 2^nd, he spent a week drinking fluids “so I could be aware of what was happening with me at that time” and “to be able to think,” as he arrived at the health center “despondent,” he clarifies.

“A week after I was there, once again I started my hunger and thirst fasting,” he said. About a week after, he called off the strike and stated that for about 15 days he has been eating again, and that he has also hydrated.

He also said that, before issuing opinions on everything that the political police have published about him during his imprisonment, he prefers to see all the videos that they leaked and what they have said about his family: “I want to see everything that is happening, get updated to be able to judge what went on.” continue reading

“A week after being there, once again I started my hunger and thirst fasting”

In relation to one of the videos where he seemed to be very thin and which caused concern among his friends, he insisted that he spent about eight days without eating and drinking water, and “of course, he was emaciated,” he said.

“All my friends have to be on the street. State Security had a meeting with me before leaving, they warned me of a thousand things, but my friends have to be on the street now… We are connected,” said the artist, referring to the phrase that has become his life motto.

Shortly before, a note from the Provincial Health Directorate had reported that the medical team treating him had decided to “have him discharged from the hospital today.” The official note added that “during his hospital stay, his progress has been favorable, with clinical and laboratory parameters that are all within normal ranges.”

In addition, the note specified that for several days he “has been on a free diet, which meets nutritional needs” and that this has allowed for “weight gain and requirements for recovery of his energy.”

Otero Alcántara’s family was putting pressure on health personnel to achieve this goal. The artist had been held in the hospital for 29 days without being able to communicate with his friends and was only seen through manipulated videos, which were released by State Security.

Family sources confirmed to 14ymedio that the health authorities of the hospital had communicated that this Monday they were going to discharge the artist. At first, the family assumed that Otero Alcántara was going to leave the medical center last Friday, however, “that did not happen.”

The artist had been held in the hospital for 29 days without being able to communicate with his friends and was only seen through manipulated videos

Relatives said they went to Calixto García Hospital but they did not discharge him and the doctors reported that they would do so this Monday. In addition, they insisted that the activist would not return to his home on Damas Street, in the San Isidro neighborhood, Old Havana municipality.

“When he gets hold of a phone, Luisito is going to tell everything that happened, he is going to denounce everything and he will continue to be a plantado (an uncooperative prisoner),” Enix Berrio, who is Otero Alcántara’s close friend, told 14ymedio.

Some family members, Berrio assures, are upset with the actions of State Security and the authorities, who “have manipulated” the situation “at will… Initially, personal experience led them to believe that they were going to help Luisito and that we are the bad guys, that we wanted to drag him to hell, but the family verified that the G2 is a string of manipulators and that they are affecting Luisito,” he admonished.

Otero Alcántara went on a hunger and thirst strike on April 25^th to demand that his rights be respected, after a month of police siege to his home. The activist also demanded the return of his artistic works or compensation for those that were destroyed by the political police.

After several days of fasting, in the early morning of May 2^nd, he was taken from his home against his will to the Calixto García Hospital. During his stay at the hospital, he had no communication with his colleagues at the San Isidro Movement (MSI) and very little with his family.

In addition, a police cordon guarded the surroundings of the Havana hospital. Although at the time of his admission the authorities confirmed that he was being admitted due to “referred voluntary starvation,” a few hours later they leaked the results of an analysis that supposedly were his vitals and that described a good state of health, even suggesting that one of the values was high due to high consumption of meat.

The government’s propaganda apparatus has not stopped campaigning to discredit Otero Alcántara, accusing him of receiving instructions and financial support from abroad

During all the time he was held at the Calixto García, the political police published several videos of the artist, possibly filmed without his consent. At all times they alleged that he was in good health, without giving explanations about the reasons for his hospitalization.

The government’s propaganda apparatus has not stopped campaigning to discredit Otero Alcántara, accusing him of receiving instructions and financial support from abroad, while international organizations have expressed concern over the kidnapping of the artist.

Amnesty International declared him a “prisoner of conscience” on May 21^st and urged President Miguel Díaz-Canel to release him “immediately and unconditionally.” They also demanded that he should receive medical care of his choice, periodic visits from his family and friends, not be tortured or suffer any other type of mistreatment, and have access to lawyers of his choice.”

The Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FDHC) insisted that it is prosecuting “as violent repressors… those people who are cooperating with State Security in inflicting temporary or irreversible damage to Otero Alcántara at the hospital.” The executive director of the NGO, Juan Antonio Blanco, noted that the Cuban regime has already used “corrupt doctors and nurses in the past to torture using electroshocks, drugs and other practices.”

Translated by Norma Whiting

____________

Otero Alcantara: ‘The Torture I Suffered Was Psychological’

Otero Alcántara spoke with ’14ymedio’ after being discharged this Monday after four weeks in solitary confinement in a hospital in Havana. (EFE)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 1 June 2021 – Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara does not plan to pause or take a rest in his art or his activism. A few hours after leaving Calixto García Hospital, where he has been for almost a month without hardly any outside communication, he told 14ymedio that he is now ready to demand freedom for the activists in prison as a result of the April 30^th protests on Obispo Street in Havana, and for Maykel ‘Osorbo’ Castillo accused of attack, contempt and resistance, who has been in prison since Monday.

“My grandmother died, I came here to be with my family, also because this was where there was a landline phone, arriving at my house Damas Street without a cell phone I was still incommunicado,” says the artist, who had just left the hospital. He went to his family home, in El Cerro, to spend at least two days in their company. Otero Alcántara is clear and begins by confirming that, when they took him out of his home in the early morning of May 2 to take him to the hospital, they did so “by force” and “handcuffed.”

14ymedio. What was your arrival at the hospital like and how did your hunger and thirst strike end?

Otero Alcántara. When I arrived, I let them give me an IV so I could be aware of what was happening, because I was very weak. The next day I started drinking water, they gave me juice and some milk. A week passed and the following Monday I started the thirst strike again, the hunger strike was continuing. Then a fortnight ago, I started eating. Now I’m upset but okay, they are seeing the end. continue reading

14ymedio. What was your daily routine at Calixto García?

Otero Alcántara. I spent all morning drawing or reading and in the morning they took my vital signs. Right now, talking about this is complex. I could say that I was tortured this way and that, but it would be dishonest. The torture I suffered was psychological. They kept the light on 24 hours a day, there was always a military man next to me, and if I spent more than 5 minutes in the bathroom he was knocking on the door. It was terribly cold the whole day and there was the fear that at any moment they can take you to another place. Plus the isolation. All that was torture.

My family was not allowed in when they wanted, when I saw them it was from a distance, like ten to twelve feet away. Of the four or five times that I saw my sister or my aunt it was at that distance, only once were we able to see each other up close and give each other a kiss and a hug, but only for five minutes, no more than that.

14ymedio. Were you always in the same room or were you transferred from time to time?

Otero Alcántara. I was in the Rubén Batista room the whole time. The three times they took me out was for those famous walks, which were supposedly to catch the sun but were actually for them to film me. The prisoners go out to sunbathe every day, but I was under air conditioning 24 hours a day and they took me out once a week, that was premeditated.

14ymedio. The video in which you go outside with Dr. Ifrán Martínez, how was it arranged? How was your relationship with the doctors?

Otero Alcántara. The video was a conscience act. I understood that I had to send a message to people, I had to say something. The doctors who were there waiting for me were the ones that State Security selected, and valued certain characteristics. They were directed to behave in a certain way, they could not spend much time with me and they recorded on a piece of paper when they arrived and left with their name and position. Those doctors had a certain chance to talk to me. Ifran brought me books, I read 12 books in that month. They also brought me pens and paper and I began to draw pictures. I drew a lot, although with the fear that State Security would take it away from me.

14ymedio. How strict was the operation around you?

Otero Alcántara. Everything was very well controlled by State Security, they were there constantly. Dr. Ifran was concerned because his face had already appeared on television, and here everyone knows that this means he may have 10 days, 20 days or two years left. I feel that they are concerned, because their children do not want their father to be the one who was later found to have tortured Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara. I noticed that they wanted to make very clear the difference between them and State Security and to emphasize that they were there because they were given the mission to save me. The hospital was totally taken over by State Security, I think that was the way they found to keep me under control.

14ymedio. How did you come to leave the hospital?

Otero Alcántara. My uncle went to the hospital to get me and a car brought us here. Now I have freedom of movement to go wherever I want. My house on Damas Street still has the police on the corner and I want to cool down (lower the temperature in) the neighborhood. Before leaving, the State Security officials told me that they have my mobile phone, but that they would not give it to me at that time because it had been left in another place and they assured me that they would return it to me, along with the works that they took from my house.

____________

The Six Cuban Activists Arrested on Obispo Street Have Been Transferred to Prisons

The communicator and activist Esteban Rodríguez, together with the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 28 May 2021 — With last Wednesday’s transfer of the communicator and activist Esteban Rodríguez to the Valle Grande penitentiary, there are now six activists jailed awaiting trial for their participation, on April 30 in Obispo Street in Havana, in an act of solidarity with the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara. The information was confirmed this Friday to 14ymedio by Rodríguez’s wife, Zuleidis Cepero.

That same day the independent journalist Mary Karla Ares was also transferred to the Guatao prison, according to her mother, Marisol González, speaking to this newspaper. The authorities accuse the peaceful protesters of the crimes of public disorder and resistance, which, according to the Cubalex Legal Information Center, can mean sentences “from three months to five years of deprivation of liberty.”

In addition to Ares and Rodríguez, the activists transferred to prisons include Thais Mailén Franco, Inti Soto Romero, Yuisán Cancio Vera and Luis Ángel Cuza. Last week Amnesty International called for the immediate release of these protesters and emphasized Ares, who broadcast the protest live on Facebook.

For his part, rapper Maykel Osorbo Castillo, who was arrested at his home on May 18, remains unaccounted for. In response to a habeas corpus petition filed in his favor, it was only known that the artist is in provisional prison accused of “disobedience, resistance and contempt,” but the place where he is being held remains unknown. continue reading

In response to this situation, on Friday the United Nations Committee Against Forced Disappearances asked the Cuban Government for news of Osorbo’s whereabouts. “The Committee requires the urgent action of the State [Cuba] to adopt all the necessary measures to search and locate Mr. Maykel Castillo Pérez and protect his life and personal integrity, in accordance with its conventional obligations,” said the organism of the UN in response to a complaint from the NGO Cuban Prisoners Defenders (CPD).

The UN letter asks Havana to “inform the relatives of Mr. Castillo Pérez about the place of his deprivation of liberty, as well as the charges against him,” and, appealing to the Convention for the Protection of All People Against Forced Disappearances, also asks that “he can communicate with his family, a lawyer or any other person of his choice and receive their visit.”

The demand is addressed to the Cuban ambassador in Geneva and gives the government of the island until June 11 to respond to their “concerns and recommendations.”

In recent weeks, Osorbo has been subjected to an intense police siege and has been detained without reason on several occasions. The 37-year-old artist, together with Yotuel Romero, Gente de Zona, Descemer Bueno and El Funky, composed the song Patria y Vida, which has exceeded five million views on YouTube and has become an anthem for the opposition both within and off the island.

This Thursday, CPD launched a manifesto in support of the artists participating in the song Patria y Vida — who have been besieged by the Cuban Government in recent weeks — in which they ask for an end to the repression.

The demand emphasizes the critical situation in Otero Alcántara, who has been in solitary confinement at the Calixto García hospital in Havana for 26 days.

Several European Parliament Deputies also signed a letter requesting that a Delegation of the European Union (EU) visit Otero Alcántara in the hospital. The letter, written by Dita Charanzová, vice-president of the European Parliament, is addressed to Josep Borrell, high representative of the EU for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

Prisoners Defenders, based in Madrid, also notes the case of the detainees from the Obispo Street protest and of Eliexer Márquez El Funky, who was also detained for a few hours, on May 18, and subjected to “a precautionary measure that prevents him from leaving his home freely.”

____________

“Signatures are not Patrimony,” Insists the Manager of La Bodeguita del Medio

La Bodeguita del Medio, which is sold to tourists as “the cradle of The Mojito,” is located on Empedrado Street, a privileged place in Cuba’s capital city. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, 26 May 2021 — The image of La Bodeguita del Medio without the thousands of signatures on its walls, which were part of its character, surprised locals and strangers. A few days ago, Robin Pedraja, creative director of the art magazine Vistar, shared photographs of the restoration of the premises on social networks and wondered who had the idea to erase “all that patrimony.” Many customers showed their rejection of a work that, according to various opinions, has resulted in the iconic place losing part of its identity.

“The signatures are not patrimony,” disagrees José Miguel Pumarada Fernández, manager of the premises, in an interview with 14ymedio. The official maintains that the premises have already undergone three renovations and argues that this intervention was necessary, due to the poor condition of the place.

“There were leaks everywhere, customers were eating and water was dripping on the tables, there was a lot of dampness. Paintings were falling off the walls because the plaster was decayed, the dampness was high and this was part of the complaints from customers who visited the establishment,” he says. continue reading

“There were leaks everywhere, customers were eating and water was dripping on the tables, there was a lot of dampness. Paintings were falling from the walls because the plaster was decayed”

Pumarada explains that three years ago the moment to start the repairs was expected, preserving everything that is considered a patrimony asset, including museum objects. “The signature book, all the framed photos – dating from the 40’s and 50’s – the house structure and its architecture, the wood, all of this was respected.”

The manager, who has been in charge of the emblematic place for seven years, adds that the City Historian’s Office door was the first one they knocked on to start the work, and although for no apparent reason he (the Historian) did not oversee the work, they have “all levels of approval” of the Monuments Commission.

However, a specialist of the Master Plan of the Office of the City Historian consulted by this newspaper affirms that he was not aware of the remodeling, but considers the elimination of the signatures “regrettable and a violation” and defends that such interventions should be controlled. “If they erased everything, it’s terrible. It’s an iconic place, it’s not just any tavern.”

Salomé García, a graduate of Plastic Arts from the Higher Institute of Art, considers that this intervention is part of “the iconoclastic offensive of the Cuban State” against patrimony

Salomé García, a graduate of Plastic Arts from the Higher Institute of Art, considers that this intervention is part of “the iconoclastic offensive of the Cuban State” against patrimony.

“This is a location of State/public property, and of high patrimonial value. The contracts for these interventions (and for many others) should be public tenders. In addition, these are interventions that should be covered in the press due to their relevance, that way, misrepresentations would be avoided,” adds the specialist, who is currently completing a Master’s Degree in Conservation and Restoration of Cultural Assets at the Polytechnic University of Valencia.

It is not the first time that La Bodeguita del Medio has remodeled its interior. In 1997, there was a physical attack against the facility, along with other tourist places such as the hotels Tritón, Chateau Miramar and the Copacabana, and part of it had to be restored and its walls painted, recalls Pumarada, who stresses that this establishment has been in operation for 78 years.

This year’s repair was necessary, he insists, because the walls had several cracks that needed to be sealed, in addition to adding strength and security. “We used the same color paint as before and everything else remained intact.”

Currently, and complying with the rules to control the pandemic, the La Bodeguita del Medio Bar remains closed, although it keeps open “a little store” on one side of the premises where food is sold.

“Any bite from a seedy inn is better than these. I was hoping they were of higher quality since this place is what it is, but it is a sandwich from a community dining room”

“The only thing they are selling are ham sandwiches at 25 pesos each,” a local resident told 14ymedio. “But they don’t have enough, only 30 loaves. According to what some workers said, whatever is in the inventory is sold,” says the Havana resident who decided to buy four sandwiches and ended up outraged. “Any bite from a seedy inn is better than these. I was hoping they were of higher quality since this place is what it is, but it is a bite from a community dining room.”

La Bodeguita del Medio, which is sold to tourists as “the cradle of The Mojito,” is located on Empedrado Street, a privileged place in the capital, a few steps from the Plaza de la Catedral, in Old Havana. This area belongs to the Historic Center, and in 1982 it was declared a World Heritage Site by Unesco.

The property had long since lost the best it had: to become a place for the national bohemian, for the regulars of the patio. Since it was dollarized and became a place with fast food for tourists, it lost its most important asset, and it was not its signatures, but its identity, its hallmark.

Translated by Norma Whiting

____________

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this:

Share this: