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.

Museo Nacional de Bellas Artes Denies Entry to Tania Bruguera / Diario de Cuba

Tania Bruguera
Tania Bruguera

diariodecubalogoDiario de Cuba, Havana, 24 May 2015 – This Saturday the Museo National de Bellas Artes (National Museum of Fine Arts) denied entry to the artist Tania Bruguera, who had been invited to the opening of an exposition by the painter Tomas Sanchez.

Deborah Bruguera, the artist’s sister, reported on her Facebook site that the justificiation “was that the Museum reserves the right of admission.”

Diario de Cuba received a recording of the conversation between Bruguera and a museum official charged with communicating to her the prohibition of entering. continue reading

The artist demanded “logical reasons” and no just that the communication “is an order.”

“I am a Cuban citizen who has the right to know why I am not permitted to enter a place,” Bruguera stated.

“Fine, we have arguments that you have caused certain difficulties at other expositions of the Biennial,” the official responded.

Bruguera rejected this accusation. “In what expositions, because I haven’t been to any. I have been in my house, this is the first and only time since the Havana Biennial started that I have left my house,” where she was “staging her performance,” she replied.

With regards to the invitation from Tomas Sanchez, the official affirmed that it was “not applicable” and that those who decided who could or could not enter a cultural institution are responsible.

Last Wednesday Bruguera began a performance in her house consisting of 100 hours of reading the book “The Origins of Totalitarianism” by Hannah Arendt.

Since Friday, the regime hijacked the reading with loud noises caused by supposed Electric Company repair work, sending workers to break up the street in front of her house.

A Deafening Noise at Tania Bruguera’s Door / El Fogonero

bruguera2El Fogonero, 22 May 2015 – The Cuban dictatorship has been left without arguments, and so they do not dare to listen to Cubans, nor let them be listened to. The latest proof of this is what is happening right now to a doorway in Havana where a woman is reading outloud.

The artist Tania Bruguera (who weeks previously was the victim of an act of censorship preventing her from presenting a performance in public) decided to sit in the doorway of her house and read, for 100 hours, the book “The Origins of Totalitarianism” by Hannah Arendt.

In response, the dictatorship sent a construction brigade to break up the pavement even more (in Havana the majority of the streets are torn up) in front of Tania’s door. It is not difficult to calculate that they will keep jackhammering for 100 hours.

According to sources close to the artist, Bruguera will wait for the “repair” work to be completed before resuming her reading. By then, we can be sure, Raul’s henchmen will have come up with a new ruse.

Meanwhile, beyond the outrage provoked by such cowardice, at least here is good news: right in front of artist Tania Bruguera’s house, a few steps from the glass case where the yacht Granma is preserved, a small stretch of Tejadillo Street will finally be repaired.

Tania Bruguera’s Tribute to Hannah Arendt Worries Cuban State Security / 14ymedio

Tania Bruguera during her performance (14ymedio)
Tania Bruguera during her performance (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 20 May 2015 — Wednesday morning the artist Tania Bruguera began more than 100 hours of consecutive reading, analysis and discussion of Hannah Arendt’s book The Origins of Totalitarianism. The event, which started in the presence of a dozen people, began in the “Hannah Arendt International Artivism Institute,” which is named after the renowned German philosopher.

The artistic action comes just at a time when galleries and cultural centers throughout the entire city are engaged in getting ready for the start, this coming Friday, for the Havana Biennial. Bruguera is not invited to the official event, but has joined the alternative artists’ circuit staging performances, expositions and shows of their current works.

Hours before the reading, Bruguera was visited by two members of State Security, who expressed their concern because the artist had bought audio equipment. They also let her know that they were aware that she intended to “go out into the street” at the conclusion of the event and warned her not to do so.

According to what was made known in the announcement, the newly opened Hannah Arendt International Artivism Institute, “proposed to provide a platform for research into the theoretical-practical approach for a socially committed art, and for a specific political moment.” Its headquarters is located in Bruguera’s home, at 214 Tejadillo Street, in Old Havana.

European Parliament Members call for EU mediation to release Cuban artists from prison / 14ymedio

The vice president of the Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party in the European Parliament, Pavel Telicka. (European Democratic Party)
The vice president of the Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party in the European Parliament, Pavel Telicka. (European Democratic Party)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 24 April 2015 — The vice presidents of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party of the European Parliament, Fernando Maura and Pavel Telicka, have asked the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Frederica Mogherini, to intervene with the Havana Government for the release from prison of Angel Santiesteban and Danilo Maldonado. In a letter to Mogherini, signed by some thirty Eurodeputies, they also call for an end to the “prolonged confinement” of Tania Bruguera.

In a letter released this Friday, the Eurodeputies ask Mogherini to mediate for the withdrawal of the charges for “counterrevolutionary activities” against the regime opponent Antonio Rodiles and his partner Ailer Gonzalez. continue reading

Maura and Telicka argue that “any step in the advancement of international diplomacy must be accompanied by a demand for a radical change in Cuban policies that restrict freedom of expression and imprison dissidents,” and they demand that respect for human rights “prevails” in relations between the European Union and Cuba.

The graffiti artist Danilo Maldonado, known as El Sexto , has been in prison since last December on charges of contempt and he continues to wait for trial. He was arrested while trying to stage a performance with two pigs stamped with the names “Fidel” and “Raul.”

The writer Ángel Santiesteban is serving a sentence of five years for an alleged crime of violation of domicile. However, activists and independent lawyers have denounced the many irregularities that were brought to bear during his trial.

Bruguera is currently unable to leave Cuba, because she is being legally prosecuted for the events arising from her attempt to organize a performance this last December. Since then, the artist has denounced “a constant psychological war.”

I Too Demand: Restaging Tania Bruguera’s “Tatlin’s Whisper #6” in Times Square, NYC, Monday, 13 April, Noon

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See more here.

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By restaging Tania Bruguera’s participatory artwork “Tatlin’s Whisper #6,” we stand in solidarity with her, Angel Santiesteban, Danilo Maldonado “El Sexto,” and all other artists around the world who face criminal charges and violence for exercising their basic human right to free expression. As article 19 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights states: “Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.”

Governments must embrace the rights of their citizens and non-citizens alike to share their voices, ideas, values, beliefs, and dreams without fear of persecution or violence. As citizens of the world with a shared humanity, we urge the government of Cuba to drop all charges against Tania Bruguera, Angel Santiesteban, and Danilo Maldonado “El Sexto,” who are either imprisoned or facing imprisonment for doing what every person of the planet should be able to do: expressing themselves.

Title of Work:

#YoTambienExijo: A Restaging of Tatlin’s Whisper #6

**Instructions**

For performance: continue reading

No microphone is needed. Instead use a human microphone like the ones used in Occupy Wall Street.

A small box (soapbox style) for the speaker to stand on.

People are invited to speak for one minute about freedom of speech.

Optional: If you want to you can include a WHITE dove, but do not keep the dove on the shoulder as this is extremely difficult. Each person can hold the dove in their hands, and hands it over to the next person. Have a few… just in case they escape.

For documentation:

Please document events (either with still or video) and post to the Creative Time Facebook “event” at facebook.com/creativetime, as well as on personal and, preferably, institutional Twitter and Instagram accounts, using the hashtags #YoTambienExijo and #FreeTaniaBruguera. Please indicate where the performance occurred and when.

“In Cuba we have learned our duties very well, but not our rights” / 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Tania Bruguera

Tania Bruguera (14ymedio)
Tania Bruguera (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 4 February 2015 – This coming February 22 Tania Bruguera should be in Madrid to present one of her works at the ARCO International Contemporary Art Fair, but she knows she isn’t going to make it. Trapped by Cuban justice since last December 30, when she was arrested during her performance #YoTambienExijo (I Too Demand), the artist remains in Havana hoping to resolve her legal situation. We talked with her about this, her artivism, and the future of Cuba.

Sanchéz. What is your current legal and immigration situation?

Bruguera. I am waiting for a prosecutor to reduce the charges against me. I have been advised by several attorneys, such as Laritza Diversent from Cubalex, and also René Gómez Manzano, from Corriente Agramontista [both independent legal groups]. They have told me that in this case there are at least three possible outcomes: one is the dismissal of the case, which could be temporary or permanent. Another is that they could impose an administrative measure, which carries a fine. The detail with this option is that I would have to recognize my guilt and accept the charges and accusations they’ve made against me, and I don’t think this variation is just. The third possibility is that it will be taken to trial continue reading

, although that seems unlikely to me.

Sanchéz. You are trapped in the intricate mechanisms of Cuban justice…

Bruguera. Throughout this process, I’ve come to realize that there is a very strong vulnerability for citizens who find themselves in similar situations. For example, it has been very difficult for me to find a lawyer who wants to take on my defense. They only allow attorneys “in the system” to represent a defendant, so the independent lawyers can advise me but they can’t represent me.

The few who have agreed to represent me have warned me, as of now, that the solution is to accept everything because the situation is over and to try not to go to trial, because the day that we get in front of a court, the sentence will have been decided before the first word is said. We will have lost before we start the defense.

Sanchéz. Among the worst nightmares of many Cuban emigrants is that of visiting the island and then their not letting you leave. Do you experience this?

“Only lawyers “in the system” can represent me, so the independent lawyers can advise me but they can’t represent me”

Bruguera. For me it’s the opposite. My nightmare is that they let me leave but they don’t let me return. Indeed, if tomorrow they return my passport, which they confiscated, I will not go. I need to be completely sure that there will be no bitter surprises like not being able to return.

Beyond that, what I have experienced in the last weeks has changed my life. I will never stop being an artist, but maybe now I have to be here. They have to understand that they cannot throw out of the country everyone who bothers them.

Sanchéz. Can you say Tatlin’s Whisper # 6, both in its first version in Cuba in 2009 as well as in this attempt now, is it a work that has marked your life?

Tatlin’s Whisper #6. With English subtitles. Tania Bruguera’s performance art which took place at the Wilfredo Lam Center in Havana at the 2009 Bienniel.

Bruguera. The performance of December 30 had its antecedent in Tatlin’s Whisper #6 realized in 2009 at the Wilfredo Lam Center, which also profoundly marked my professional life. I didn’t know at first, because it wasn’t public, but I was banned from exhibiting in Cuba.

I began to realize it because no one called me to explain here, which I assume was because they were trying to protect… something natural in the system. However, the same people who censored me at the time a posteriori, and who are censoring me now, want to use the realization of that performance as an example of tolerance… and it wasn’t.

Sanchéz. Why do you think that at that time it was possible to open the microphones to the public?

Bruguera. What happened at that opportunity at the Wilfredo Lam Center was because of the particular conditions that came together. It was during the Havana Biennial, a space which in itself is more tolerant, there were a lot of press and foreigners present, I was the guest of Guillermo Gómez Peña, the special guest of the Biennial, plus it was within an art space with an audience the majority of whom are intellectuals. Afterwards, there indeed was a punishment.

I propose projects to Cuban cultural institutions and they always tell me no. Something very unfortunate happened, which was a trip I made with my students from the French École des Beaux-Arts during which we wanted to visit the Superior Art Institute (ISA).

Then from ISA they sent a pretty clear and direct letter to the director of the school in Paris saying they couldn’t accept this visit if I would be leading the group and they should send another professor, because I was a person with whom they had no professional relationship, ignoring of course that I graduated from this school and was a professor there for a few years.

On this same trip, when I got to the airport, I was met by a representative from the National Arts Council and a person dressed in civilian clothes who never identified himself. Both let me know that I wouldn’t be able to do anything with the institutions and tried to tell me that there were problems with my passport, with the permit, trying to block my entry to the country, but I was able to prove it was all in good standing under the new travel and immigration law.

“If some foreigner asked about me, I was a valued artist, but if I proposed to do something in the institutions they wouldn’t allow me to”

On a subsequent trip to Cuba, I asked for an appointment with the Deputy Minister of Culture, Fernando Rojas, to deal with my case. Also attending this meeting were Rubén del Valle, president of the National Arts Council, and Jorge Fernández, the director of the Havana Biennial.

I explained everything that had happened to me and they responded that none of this would have occurred if I hadn’t been provocative in the 2009 Biennial and they weren’t going to forget about and I wouldn’t have any more expositions in Cuban institutions.

I could see then that there was a clear double-standard policy against me; if some foreigner asked about me, I was a valued artist, but if I proposed to do something in the institutions they wouldn’t allow me to.

On that occasion, I remember that the deputy minister told me that the fact that I was there meeting with them indicated that they wanted to redefine my relationship with the institution and I told him I could see that, but I was an artist who dissented and criticized what didn’t seem right to me, and I had done it here and wherever I did my work and that wasn’t going to change.

Well, today we know the result of that cultural policy with those who return: bring us your money and your prestige but not your criticisms.

Interview: Yoani Sanchez and Tania Bruguera (14ymedio)
Interview: Yoani Sanchez and Tania Bruguera (14ymedio)

Sanchéz. How did you get the idea of repeating the performance, this time in the Plaza of the Revolution?

Bruguera. I was in Italy, at a performance festival I’d been invited to, and on Wednesday, 17 December, I traveled from Venice to Rome to participate in a Mass of Pope Francis.

When it was over, I returned on the train and my sister called to ask me if I had seen the news about the announcement made by the governments of Cuba and the United States. It was very powerful news emotionally, as it was for any Cuban. It was a surprise that shook the foundations underlying the entire Cuban identity. The answer to this emotion was to write a letter.

I wanted to look him in the face, Raúl Castro, and ask how he could explain so many years of confrontation. While I was writing the letter, a phrase started to emerge, “as a Cuban I demand that…” And in that I was putting all my doubts, all my unanswered questions, about a future that wasn’t clear, about an idea of a nation that was redefined without a good look at where it was going.

Then I sent it to my sister and a friend who answered, “I also demand.” So I also sent it to the newspaper Granma and this paper [14ymedio] where it was finally published. It was a very nice experience, because it was something I did spontaneously… I’d never published anything like that, but immediately many people started to say “I also demand” and even created a hashtag on social networks. I was very excited to see so many people get involved and I must confess that I remembered my time with Occupy Wall Street.

Sanchéz. The energy of spontaneity?

Bruguera. Yes, the strength that comes from the enthusiasm that something can generate. Here the cultural and political institutions want to own the enthusiasm of Cubans, they believe that enthusiasm is only legitimate if it is something that is consistent with the interests of the State.

“The cultural and political institutions believe that enthusiasm is only legitimate if it is something that is consistent with the interests of the State”

Sanchéz. Did you expect the reaction from the cultural and official institutions?

Bruguera. I never thought it would generate such a disproportionate response. Most significant was that of the president of the National Council of Arts himself, Ruben del Valle, who told me after two lengthy meetings that he washed his hands of what might happen to me legally… or anything else.

On the other hand, the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) published a rather aggressive statement, and I am a member of that organization, and they didn’t even call a meeting with me beforehand, without inquiring or investigating. They simply judged me and questioned that what I tried to do was art.

The Cuban cultural institutions judge instead of creating a space for collective debate about the culture, when things like this happen. Because of this I returned my National Culture Award and resigned my membership in UNEAC.

Sanchéz. Some artists in the country have supported you in the past few weeks, as is the case with the painter Pedro Pablo Oliva, while others like Lázaro Saavedra criticized aspects of the performance, and the great majority have remained silent. How do you view the attitude of the Cuban intellectual and artistic world toward what happened?

Bruguera. First it is important to say that everyone has the right to react however they want and not to be judged for it. Now, well in Cuba we know that there is a cultural policy of many years with certain invisible boundaries that people know they should not cross because there will be consequences, and it is also true that in a place where they pressure you to define yourself, at times silence is the most articulate argument. I have had a very warm response and support from many artists and people on the street whom I don’t even know.

Sanchéz. Were you willing, at some point, to change the location of the performance and not to hold it at the Plaza of the Revolution?

Bruguera. Even for me, the location in the Plaza was problematic from an aesthetic point of view. I had problems with the Plaza of the Revolution because on a symbolic level it’s exhausted, it is a symbol that has been overused… that doesn’t even represent ordinary Cubans, but rather the great powers of the government. Doing it in the Plaza, I wrote in the letter addressed to Raúl and published in 14ymedio on 18 December, was more like a metaphor.

I also imagined a place like Old Havana where there is every type of person, where the people are. I proposed other locations, like the street in front of the universal art of the Art Museum and the space between the National Belles Artes Museum and the Museum of the Revolution, but they weren’t accepted.

Sanchéz. What was the proposal of the National Arts Council?

“Ruben del Valle insisted that the right of admission had to be controlled, so they wouldn’t let in ‘the dissidents and the mercenaries’.”

Bruguera. They proposed to do it inside the Belles Artes Museum in the Cuban Art Building. I told Rubén del Valle no, in the first place because of the aesthetic problem. I didn’t want to repeat the same work from 2009, so I said that five years later it wouldn’t be inside the institution where something like this has been done, rather it had to conquer the streets.

I proposed then that we do it on the stairs at the entrance to the museum, but he insisted it has to be inside and that the right of admission had to be controlled, so they wouldn’t let in “the dissidents and the mercenaries.”

He boasted that the opposition only represented 0.0001% of the Cuban population, to which I responded that I was often 0.0001% of something and it was very good, because it is also necessary that there be minorities.

Sanchéz. They are waiting for you in Madrid to present a work in ARCO 2015, but you probably won’t arrive in time. What will you show there?

Bruguera. It is like so many projects that are now halted and won’t be realized, something that was coordinated over many months, almost a year. It is a work I did in Cuba when I saw myself like a Nkisi, an African religious icon that people put nails into to make a wish. In return, they promise something to the icon and they have to keep their promise, if not the spirit will collect on the promise. People have a lot of respect, because they feel that it is a very strong spirit.

In 1998, dressed like that, I went out into the streets of Old Havana and it created a kind of procession. I wanted to represent, then, the idea of promises made to the people and never kept. The suit ended up with residue on it and there is a gallery in Madrid that I had planned to have repair it, before the show, because it was damaged in transit. But I know now that I won’t get there, I have asked the organizers to invite the spectators to the show and they themselves can repair it, putting nails into it and making their requests.

Sanchéz. ¿Artist or artivista ?

Bruguera. I make political art. For me there is a clear division in art, on one side that which is a representation because it comments, and on the other, art that works from the political because it wants to change something. I make art that appropriates the tools of the political and tries to generate political moments, an art through which one speaks directly to power and in its own language.

For example, I had a school (Cátedra Arte de Conducta / Behavior Art School) for seven years because education is one of the long-term pillars of politics, and I also did a newspaper twenty years ago (Memoria de la Postguerra / Postwar Memory) to “take” the media like they do, and now I take to the streets, the plazas and the places they create that belong exclusively to power.

“Artivisim” is a variant of political art which I ascribe to that tries to change things, not satisfied with denouncing, but rather trying to find solutions to change, a little bit, the political reality in which we live.

Sanchéz. Do you think that after December 30 Cuba is closer to an Occupy Wall Street?

Bruguera. That is what they fear most. Even in the various meetings I had with the cultural authorities and officials they told me I wanted to do here the same thing that had happened in the streets of Ukraine. That’s their great obsession.

The irony is that they felt Occupy Wall Street was nice when it happened over there, in the United States, but they make clear that they will not allow the use of plazas for something like that here.

Sanchéz. Some saw in your call to the Plaza an act that could impede the restoration of relations between Cuba and the United States. Did you feel that? What do you think of this process?

Bruguera. It is very contradictory, because on one hand the authorities here tell me that what I do does not matter to anyone, and on the other hand they accuse me that my actions will ruin the country’s future. They make you feel like you don’t matter, but also that you carry the weight of the blame for what happens.

It is very naïve to think that some negotiations between two governments for 18 months, with so many interests involved, are going to be ruined by a performance… I don’t have such a disproportionate ego.

“It is very naïve to think that some negotiations between two governments for 18 months, with so many interests involved, are going to be ruined by a performance”

Personally, I think all that is peace is welcome. The problem is just making political headlines in the short-term and not legislative policy in the long-term. Everyone wonders whether the “blockade” will be removed and that is very complex process in which many details, and techniques, need to be negotiated.

For me, what is important are the possibilities that exist today, because they have started to restore diplomatic relations and there is a serious debate about the “blockade,” to rethink the project of the nation from a collective space where all Cubans participate, and that is what #YoTambienExijo is about.

It is time to ask for a decriminalization of opinion differences, to create another policy with the press and the media, to legalize civic associations and political parties, to revise the Constitution, to allow Cubans to be active citizens and not just aspire to be passive consumers.

And we must also ensure that the benefits reach everyone. Cubans are very defenseless, especially those who remained in Cuba. Without revising and changing the laws, without a civic literacy program, without institutions beginning to respond not to the government but to the interests of the members of their organizations, without non-institutional critical spaces… it is not possible to prevent the coming, for example, of a huge transnational that mistreats the workers, that doesn’t pay a decent wage, and that doesn’t allow unions to protect them.

It is the government’s responsibility to prepare citizens for what is coming and to provide laws that protects them, but they seem so focused on keeping themselves in power that they can’t see how important it is to empower ordinary Cubans. In Cuba we have learned our duties very well, but not our rights. The time has come for ordinary Cubans to demand their rights.

Political repression increases in Cuba during the month of December, according to CCHRNC / 14ymedio

People gathering in Havana on Human Rights Day in December. (14ymedio)
People gathering in Havana on Human Rights Day in December. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 5 January 2015 — According to its monthly report, during the month of December the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and reconciliation (CCDHRN) registered at least 489 arbitrary arrests for political reasons, closing out 2014 with at least 8,899 arrests for the year. continue reading

The commission, based in Havana, said that despite the reestablishment of relations between Cuba and the US, “The situation of civil and political rights and other fundamental rights in Cuba continues to be the worst in the entire Western Hemisphere.”

The month of December was marked by two events that produced a large number of arrests. The first occurred on December 10, World Human Rights Day. That date was marked by a wave of, “At least 234 arrests at the hands of the Cuban government, often with violence, of peaceful dissidents,” according to the CCDHRN report.

The second wave of arrests occurred on 30 December, the date of the ‘performance’ scheduled by Tania Bruguera for the Plaza of the Revolution. At least 70 people, including several reporters from this digital newspaper, were arrested by the political police for attending or trying to attend the Tatlin’s Whisper performance, which was intended to exercise the right of free expression. These detentions lasted, in some cases, up to 72 hours.

The CCDHRN also warned that, compared with November, in December there was an increase in, “The victims of physical aggression, acts of vandalism and harassment, and acts of repudiation.” Furthermore, three new political prisoners were jailed in December: Danilo Maldonado, Sonia González and Marcelino Abreu.

Tania Bruguera leaves UNEAC and returns her National Culture Award / 14ymedio

Tania Bruguera at TEDGlobal 2013. (James Duncan Davidson)
Tania Bruguera at TEDGlobal 2013. (James Duncan Davidson)

14ymedio, Havana, 5 January 2014 – This Monday, the Cuban artist Tania Bruguera returned the National Culture Award (Distinción por la Cultura Nacional) she received in 2002, and decided to renounce her membership in the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC).

“I can not receive recognition from, nor be part of, an institution that speaks for all but only through the presidency of the organization. Cultural institutions which, instead of opening a dialogue and a space for aesthetic analysis criminalize and judge, reduce the response to a work to generating fear of the work, and on top of it, distance themselves from it,” says the letter addressed to Cuba’s Deputy Minister of Culture, Fernando Rojas, and delivered Monday to the headquarters of the Ministry of Culture. continue reading

Bruguera was released last Friday after her attempt to stage a ‘performance’ in the Plaza of the Revolution in Havana, which would have given one minute at the microphone to any citizen who participated. The artist could not reach the Plaza because she was arrested before leaving home and twice more in the following days. “To peacefully present yourself and speak for one minute is an example of political art and of the function of art in society. It is what is called ‘Art Made for a Specific Political Moment,’ which can be translated as a work undertaken for a specific political context and situation,” she added.

The text of the letter:

Compañero Fernando Rojas
Vice Minister of Culture
Republic of Cuba

Upon my return from Documenta11, on 27 November 2002 the Ministry of Culture gave me, along with other young artists, the National Culture Award (Distinción por la Cultura Nacional). For years I did not give importance to this event because it did not change anything in my life or in my thinking. In fact, I didn’t remember if I had saved it, or if it had been lost. After recent events, this Award has taken on another meaning for me.

Today I return the Award to the Ministry of Culture, I put it in the hands of the vice minister with whom I previously have had ideological discussions about censorship. Today I also renounce my membership in the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC). I can not receive recognition from, nor be part of, an institution that speaks for all but only through the presidency of the organization. Cultural institutions which, instead of opening a dialogue and a space for aesthetic analysis criminalize and judge, reduce the response to a work to generating fear of the work, and on top of it, distance themselves from it.

I have heard many times in Cuba that this is not the appropriate time to criticize or to use a metaphor or to stage a work. Many times I have censored myself in the face of these words that magically cast blame on a doubt or an opinion. Today I know that the appropriate time for an artist is ALWAYS, but especially when the ways of evaluating the social or the human are suspended, but the appropriate moment cannot be a government directive because this makes it propaganda and not art. The artist would be in service to a government and not to a society. Opinion and art cannot exist only when they are permitted by the institution. I believe that it was the appropriate moment to make a work of art because all the decisions about what Cuba is going to be are still not implemented. There is still hope, many believe that undefined spaces exist within which all of we Cubans could be a part.

The changes in Cuba cannot be real if the decision comes from above and is reported and must be accepted. The changes in Cuba cannot be real if a different opinion is given when the government invites it. The changes in Cuba cannot be real if Cubans are afraid to know certain words, for example Human Rights. The changes in Cuba cannot be real if Cubans fear that having an opinion will leave them without a job. The changes in Cuba cannot be real if what is of interest to the government about Cubans is their money and not their ideas.

How sad is a government that sees a threat to the state in allowing regular Cubans one minute in which they can say what they think without government control! How sad is a government that jails the audience of a work of art!

Un abrazo,

Tania Bruguera

Havana, 5 January 2015.

Tania Bruguera released / 14ymedio

Tania Bruguera
Tania Bruguera

14ymedio, 2 January 2014 — The #YoTambienExijo.(I Also Demand) platform announced this Friday afternoon the release of the artist Tania Bruguera from the Acosta y Diez de Octubre Police Station. According to the platform, “Bruguera is already in her family’s apartment in El Vedado, she is going to rest right now and be with her mother.”

As of now, Bruguera has made no additional statements, but she appreciates all the support from the international community in the last few days. “Now is the time to be with my mother,” Bruguera stated, through the Twitter account of #YoTambienExijo.

Tania was arrested on Thursday outside the police center known as the Vivac de Calabazar. By the time of her release, thousands of people from all over the world had already signed a letter addressed to Raul Castro demanding her immediate release.

Bruguera made clear that she did not want to be released until all those arrested because of her artistic performance were released. “I cannot allow people to remain prisoners on my account, I can’t accept that the audience of political art is repressed, censored and suffers on my account,” the artist declared.

Bruguera’s case will be evaluated by the prosecutor in the coming days, the platform said. Her passport has been confiscated and she cannot leave the country.

Tania Bruguera Under Arrest at Acosta Police Station in Diez de Octubre, Havana / 14ymedio

Tania Bruguera (photo from her blog)
Tania Bruguera (photo from her blog)

14ymedio, Havana, 30 december 2014 — Contacted by phone at her home, the director of 14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, said that Tania Bruguera was under arrest at the Acosta Police Station in the Diez de Octubre municipality in Havana.

Reinaldo Escobar was released from the same station Tuesday night at 10:00 pm. Escobar affirmed that he saw Tania “wearing the gray uniform of a convict,” It is still unknown when Bruguera will be released.

The two police cars surrounding Yoani Sanchez’s building have been removed and the director of this digital daily is no longer under house arrest.

The 14ymedio reporter Victor Ariel Gonzalez is still being detained, in Guanabacoa. Still unknown are the whereabouts of the activists Antonio Rodiles, Ailer Gonzalez and Eliecer Avila, along with the photographer Claudio Fuentes and his partner, Eva Baquero.

Developing news.

UPDATE: Ailer Gonzalez has been released.

Several activists and Reinaldo Escobar, editor-in-chief of ’14ymedio’, arrested / 14ymedio

The police car in front of the apartment of Reinaldo Escobar and Yoani Sanchez. (14ymedio)
The police car in front of the apartment of Reinaldo Escobar and Yoani Sanchez. (14ymedio)

The director of this newspaper, Yoani Sánchez, is under house arrest

14ymedio, Havana, 30 December 2014 – Contacted by phone at her home, the director of 14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, explained the circumstances of the arrest of her husband, Reinaldo Escobar, and of several other people this Tuesday in Havana. She is under house arrest. Patrol car No. 507 is stationed in front of the building where she lives, while four plainclothes offices are controlling the building entrances. continue reading

Reinaldo Escobar was arrested when he left the building where he lives in the company of the activist Eliécer Ávila, founder of the group “Somos Más” (We are More). Both were handcuffed and put in a patrol car waiting in front of the building in the Havana neighborhood of Neuvo Vedado. Reinaldo’s daughter, Luz, who was with her father, has not been arrested, but a State Security agency told her, “We are not going to let you leave.” The same official visited Luz Escobar’s home yesterday to warn her not to go near the Plaza of the Revolution today, where the artist Tania Bruguera has scheduled a performance titled “Tatlin’s Whisper #6” for 3:00 in the afternoon, to demand freedom of expression for Cuban’s citizens.

Also arrested were photographer Claudio Fuentes and his companion Eva, while the activists Antonio Rodiles and Ailer González were not answering the phone. Social networks also inform us of the arrests of José Díaz Silva, Raúl Borges, Lady in White Lourdes Esquivel, and of the 14ymedio reporter Víctor Ariel González.

Members of the #YOTAMBIENEXIJO [I also demand] platform issued a press release denouncing their inability to contact Bruguera. The organization explained that the artist’s telephone number is blocked and expressed their fear, given the arrests of the leaders of civic organizations currently underway.