Web Platform Reflejos Closes the ‘14ymedio’ Blog / 14ymedio

"Esteemed user of the Platform "Blogs Reflejos": You have repeatedly published content that is not in keeping with the objectives of the platform Reflejos, not complying with the conditions you previously accepted. For that reason the blog is suspended...
“Esteemed user of the Platform “Blogs Reflejos”: You have repeatedly published content that is not in keeping with the objectives of the platform Reflejos, not complying with the conditions you previously accepted. For that reason the blog is suspended…”

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 27 March 2015 – The new Cuban blog platform, Reflejos, has decided to close the 14ymedio blog for “repeatedly publishing content that does not conform to the objectives with which the platform was created,” according to an email sent this Friday by the administrators.

The daily is accused of “failing to meet [the site’s] the conditions of use” with no other details. Nevertheless, when it was launched March 18, Kirenia Fagundo Garcia, a consultant on Reflejos, explained that there were no “restrictions as far as topics addressed on the blogs and users interested in the service.”

The blog opened by this daily on the digital platform was designed to bring its contents to Cuban readers since our site has been blocked on the Island’s servers since its creation in May of 2014.

During the few days in which it was active, the blog published a varied group of texts that ranged from culture to recipes to opinion columns. Neither verbal violence nor personal attacks were used, and the majority of commenters were internet users very interested in the topics that the posts covered.

The 14ymedio blog has been the object of many criticisms by bloggers associated with the Cuban government. At the beginning of this week, the official site for CubaSí news lamented the presence of “mercenaries in service of the US” on Reflejos. The writer of the article, M. H. Lagarde, accused 14ymedio in wrathful terms of having “contaminated” the platform with “counter-revolutionary propaganda.”

The digital platform is part of the Cuba Va project of the Computer and Electronic Youth Club. Set up on the free content manager WordPress, it has several technological deficiencies such as slow operation, low storage capacity (barely 250 megabytes per blog) and problems with the image upload tool. Nevertheless, in spite of these technical difficulties, we had managed to create a functional “mirror” of 14ymedio, on a service that calls itself Reflejos (Reflections) and that was announced from the beginning as a space for the blogs of the Cuban family.

Translated by MLK

The Beast Grows Angry When it is Reminded of its Dead / Ricardo Medina

My brother and friend, Priest Pastor Bautista Mario Félix Lleonart Barroso, told me “the beast grows angry when it is reminded of its dead” in a text message that reflected his worry because of the arbitrary arrest of my wife Katia Sonia Martín Véliz and Aimé Cabrales Aguilar, on the morning of July 13.

Unfortunately, while many Cubans paid tribute to the victims of the tugboat “13 de Marzo” (March the 13th) that, by order of the Cuban government, was sunk in the waters of the Bay of Havana to the sound of pressurized water jets and sandbags, the world shuddered because of the death by freezing of a young Cuban who was trying to escape the same regime that massacred a group of people seventeen years ago.

This time, Adonis put himself at the risk in search of freedom like any human being, he tried to make it in the rear landing gear of an Iberia aircraft that served the Havana-Madrid Flight 6620. His body was found with wounds in the chest and the head, as reported by the Anatomical Forensic Institute of Madrid. Cubans submerged in complete misinformation had no knowledge about another victim of the Castro regime intolerance. I do not think Adonis was escaping repression, but he was in search of opportunities that Cuban people are deprived of.

The Priest Bautista was right; the beast grows angry when it is reminded of its dead, but the firm stand of the internal opposition movement, day after day, continues to remember and pay tribute to the dead of the dictatorship, until it is time for the murderers to present themselves before the court of life and assume the consequences of their actions.

Presbyterian Ricardo Santiago Medina Salabarria+

Translated by: Nina

July 13 2011

A Botched Robbery / Rebeca Monzo

A friend from Spain sent me a package in the mail, on July 6th, containing medicines, two cell phones, one for myself and the other one for another person, with their corresponding chargers, three flash drives, and some office supplies.

The package arrived in less than fifteen days. When I was notified of its arrival, I went to pick it up to the Ministry of Communications facilities. At the moment that the package was handed to me, the employee noticed that outside of the box protected by a transparent plastic from the TransVal Company, was a loose cell phone battery. After we opened it up to look at its content, we saw that the two cell phones declared on the original invoice were missing. Only the batteries were left (botched robbery) whose models corresponded to the different brands, and the empty box of one of them.

The box arrived with an expected note saying: Unfortunately your shipment arrived at our services with damages to its packaging.

I immediately went to make my claim to the Technical Department of the Postal Zone Six for Services to the Population. There, they also charged me $25.00 pesos. I don’t know if that was because of my mismanagement or what.

It is assumed that the mail is inviolable, and especially when the contents have been declared to the pertinent authorities. How is it possible that accidentally all packages, including mail, even a simple magazine from a foreign university, get here damaged, and come along with the obviously expected note?

Right there, an employee, very kindly, informed me that if I wanted to, I could go to Calle 100 and Boyeros, where all the packages arrive before they are processed by the Ministry of Communications, but the problem was that they did not serve the public there. This seemed a joke to me, but the woman told me this very seriously.

I decided to write a letter, to explain this story with every detail, and send it to the Juventud Rebelde (Rebel Youth) Newspaper, which has a section called Acknowledgment of Receipt, where they use to receive and publish this type of complaint. What turns out to be ridiculous and deplorable is the botch of the robbery.

Translated by: Nina

July 23 2011