English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Havana, 18 April 2020 — After a two-hour interrogation, the independent journalist Mónica Baró was fined 3,000 pesos under the rule of Decree Law 370 that regulates the use of the internet in Cuba. The reporter was summoned despite the Covid-19 pandemic and the authorities’ call for Cubans not to leave their homes. The … Continue reading “A 3,000 Peso Fine for Monica Baro for Texts on Facebook”
Iván García, Havana, December 9th, 2019 — This interview is the fruit of much bargaining. In various profiles that Journal of The Americas aims to publish on independent Cuban journalists of different generations, the name Monica Baro is underlined in red. The plan was to open the season with an interview of the brilliant young … Continue reading “Monica Baro: "You Can’t Sacrifice Yourself for a Utopia" / Ivan Garcia”
14ymedio, Havana, March 31, 2023–Sulmira Martínez Pérez, arrested on January 10th for announcing her intention to protest in the streets, was transferred on March 17 to Guatao prison in Havana, according to Mónica Baró who cited the 21-year-old’s mother, Norma Pérez. “Norma says her daughter is traumatized, that in Villa Marista [prison] during the visits … Continue reading “Arrested in January for Calling for ‘Another July 11th’ in Cuba, Sulmira Martínez is Taken to Guatao Prison”
14ymedio, Havana, 10 October 2022 — Members of the independent Cuban intellectual and artistic community have signed a manifesto in which they accuse the Cuban Government of “lack of political will” to manage the “accumulated needs of the population” and “their human desire for freedom.” The letter “From Cuban artists and intellectuals to Cuban citizens … Continue reading “‘They Have Chosen to Support Repression. We Denounce It.’”
14ymedio, Madrid, 30 May 2021 — On Monday, May 30th, an impenetrable operation guarded the Tribunal in Marianao in Havana, where the first day of the trial was held for Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Castillo Osorbo. Some witnesses who were able to attend the oral arguments relayed to 14ymedio that, based on the behavior of the Tribunal and … Continue reading “Arrests and Threats for Cuban Activists During the Trial of Alcantara and Osorbo”
14ymedio, Madrid, 2 May 2022 — His name is Elías Rizo León and he is 16 years old. The boy who became the symbol of the July 11 protests in Cuba by climbing with a flag onto an overturned police car on the corner of Toyo, in the Havana municipality of Diez de Octubre, has made … Continue reading “Young Man With the Cuban Flag on Top of the Police Car on July 11th (11J) Shows up in Madrid”
14ymedio, Havana, January 30, 2022 — Cuban independent journalism has had to reinvent itself several times. The police repression and draconian laws against freedom of expression maintained on the Island are not the only obstacles. Emigration is one of the biggest threats to a press that is also still being persecuted and demonized. Work teams … Continue reading “Exodus of Reporters Strikes a Blow to the Independent Press in Cuba”
14ymedio, Havana, 15 November 2021 – Dawn had barely broken this 15th November in Cuba, the date set for the opposition’s Civic March for Change, when Saily González, a member of the Archipiélago platform — the conveners of the march — faced an act of repudiation already organized at front of the door of her … Continue reading “Cuba: 15N Begins With an Act of Repudiation in Front of Saily Gonzalez’s House”
14ymedio, Havana, January 13, 2021 — The Gabo Foundation has gotten another scolding from the Cuban government for including three independent journalists in the list of finalists for its annual award. The relationship between the two parties has all but collapsed since the Foundation for a New Ibero-American Journalism, an organization founded by García Márquez in Cartagena, Colombia, … Continue reading “Cubadebate Criticizes Friends at the Gabo Foundation for Supporting the Independent Press”
14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 22 December 2020 — In one of those sporadic arbitrary arrests that I have come to know at the hands of State Security, one of the agents who was driving me began to insult me in an uncontrolled way, emphasizing that everything I did was motivated by the money received from … Continue reading “The Risks of Working With the Wrong Profile”
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 2 December 2020 — The independent artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara was detained this Wednesday when he left the house of the journalist Mónica Baró and while speaking by phone with 14ymedio. A police patrol took him to his mother’s house, where a State Security agent forbade him to go out and “told … Continue reading “Otero Alcantara Detained Again in Havana While Giving an Interview to ’14ymedio’”
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 26 November 2020 — One week after the start of the hunger strike at the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement to demand freedom for Denis Solís, sentenced to eight months in a summary trial for an alleged crime of contempt, signs of solidarity continue to arrive via the activists of … Continue reading “Carlos Varela: “Cutting the Wings of Freedom of Expression Cannot Continue””
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 17 September 2020 — The young influencer and reporter Jancel Moreno was summoned this Wednesday afternoon by the police of the city of Matanzas and was threatened with up to four years in prison if he does not stop publishing criticism against the Cuban authorities on social networks. Moreno, who is also … Continue reading “Cuban Police Threaten the Young ‘Influencer’ Jancel Moreno with Prison”
14ymedio, Havana, August 3, 2020 — The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH), headquartered in Madrid, in its July report, denounced the consolidation of a new pattern of repression on the Island, keeping activists in their homes. According to the NGO, although the practice isn’t new, it has increased this year. Already in February, before … Continue reading “Cuba is Criticized for Home Detentions, Dollarization and Persecution of ‘Coleros’”
14ymedio, Havana, 31 July 2020 — The Spanish press agency EFE’s representative in Havana, Lorena Canto, was challenged on Twitter by two senior officials of Cuba’s Ministry of Foreign Relations in response to a tweet that referenced the “persecution” suffered this Thursday by several independent journalists. “Independent journalists in Cuba complain that, once again, authorities … Continue reading “Government Officials Lash Out Against EFE’s Correspondent in Cuba”
