14ymedio – Page 499 – Translating Cuba

Red Meat and Social Networks

A woman connects to the internet in the wifi zone on La Rampa in Havana (EFE).

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, 5 March 2018 –The first time I heard a vegan explain to a Cuban why he did not eat meat, the interaction could not have been more absurd. Although the tourist insisted on the negative effects of certain foods, my compatriot did not understand the rejection of what he considered a longed for delicacy in the midst of the economic crisis of the island.

The scene has returned to my mind lately, as I read the onslaught against social networks launched, fundamentally, by users living in hyperconnected societies. Facebook has become the new red meat of those who say they are worried about the addiction of checking one’s wall, or “likes” or the publications of others. continue reading

It is a respectable position, but it goes beyond questions of being glued to a screen waiting for a “like.” Those who promote this attitude ignore the importance of these platforms as a space for criticism, dissemination and protection of innumerable movements and people on this planet.

Social networks are a virtual territory from which many of the frameworks of opinion that later influence the polls emerge, as has been seen in several electoral processes in recent years.

To flee social networks because they share false news, and abound in frivolity and hate messages and in even more serious dangers such as sexual harassment, is leaving the field to those who promote those practices and make the Internet a place increasingly less safe. It is an attitude similar to that of the citizen who does not vote.

Social networks are a virtual territory from which many of the frameworks of opinion that later influence the polls emerge, as has been seen in several electoral processes in recent years. Not to participate in their debates, their interactions and even their fights is to lose a part of our civic space.

Like all public places, social networks are also a battlefield. One of the founders of Facebook, Sean Parker, who was the first president of the company, has publicly expressed his concern about the effect it has on us to spend too much time in that soup of emoticons, selfies and messages.

Parker points out that social networks exploit some human psychological vulnerabilities, especially those that signal our need for approval and attention. The creator of Napster considers himself a “social networks objector,” and is barely seen in any of them. It is worth noting that his assessment of the phenomenon is based on a very American experience and is influenced by the churning of Silicon Valley. To many he sounds like that vegan who tried to convince a hungry Havanan that the food they dreamed about was not a good thing for their health or for the environment.

It is worth wondering if those who, today, criticize these services, at some moment tried to influence their propensities and paths

It is worth wondering if those who, today, criticize these services, at some moment tried to influence their propensities and paths. Most Internet users rarely report a story as false or take the trouble to write to technical services to propose improvements or alert them to bad practices. Some of the passivity suffered by modern societies has been transferred to the social networks, where people accept things as they are or take refuge in their personal lives, while insisting that “politics is dirty” and it is better to stay away.

The call to cancel Twitter, Facebook and Instagram accounts as a strategy to save oneself from the tide of interference in one’s private life or the powerful eyes of the companies that collect personal information, is a road that leads irredeemably to abandonment by those who most need to be read and heard in these spaces.

In Latin America, in more than one case, the social networks have confronted the cravings of the region’s authoritarian governments. Without these channels, the images of repression against the popular revolts in Venezuela would have been stuck behind the iron wall of control Nicolas Maduro imposed on the national media. With the expelling of news networks and the closing of television channels, as well as the official hijacking of others, Miraflores Palace shut down most of the opportunities to narrate a country that is now narrated tweet by tweet or through the Facebook accounts of those who continue to report from within.

The same thing happens in Cuba, where the World Wide Web has marked a before and after on issues such as censorship, awareness about complaints of human rights violations and the dissemination of opposition platforms.

Are we going to shut the doors to social networks and leave these protestors on their own? Instead of a stampede, why not propose a more civic attitude among the users of these services? A greater involvement to denounce the “fake news” or those networks of trash that now flood cyberspace.

A significant share of the world’s population is more afraid of the eyes of the political police, the paramilitary groups or the dictatorship of the day in the real world

The arguments of those who promote digital asceticism include avoiding letting the mega-conglomerates like Google or that creature created by Mark Zuckerburg make use of personal information to sell us products. A kind of remote-controlled commerce where the user is seen as a conglomerate of phobias to avoid and desires to satisfy.

But that motive only applies to a certain number of people in this world, where there is also a large share of inhabitants who have never bought anything online and who get no benefit from clicking on an advertisement targeted to their interests, because they do not even have a credit card.

To think that companies peeking at the photos we publish or our list of contacts is universally feared, is a mistake made by the first world. A significant share of the world’s population is more afraid of the eyes of the political police, the paramilitary groups or the dictatorship of the day in the real world.

It should also be noted that other circumstantial phobias, the products of overkill, also appeared when the telephone allowed us to converse without meeting face to face, and predicted the end of friendship and personal relationship.

Even if we ourselves do not look at that intricate cosmogony that is made up of virtual forums, chats and walls, our life is determined to a large extent by what is published there

Coincidentally, these are the people for whom social networks are not only the way to relate what is happening to them but also a kind of protective umbrella to shelter them from repression.

As in so many things we have gone to extremes. From the illusion of believing that through digital platforms we would be able to overthrow regimes, rebuild countries and achieve democracy, to the promotion of an idyllic state of disconnection where, in theory, we are happier, less controlled and more attentive to our children.

To believe that we can take refuge in a bubble without “trending topics” is a fantasy. Even if we ourselves do not look at that intricate cosmogony that is made up of virtual forums, chats and walls, our life is determined to a large extent by what is published there. Retreating only leaves us on the sidelines, but it does not protect us from what is cooked up in the digital agora.

It is not necessary to leave social networks, but rather to help to change them.

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Editor’s Note: This text was initially published in the Spanish newspaper El País.

The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Cuban Baseball Needs More Young Blood

The Nicaraguan team left much to be desired after there was a lot of talk in the Cuban media about who would be selected. (La Prensa)

14ymedio, Ernesto Santana, Havana, 28 February 2018 — The youth should have played more. In this, some commentators and followers agree that the game with Nicaragua should have used players with less experience, instead of abusing some productive players who have already been overworked.

In part, due to doubts like these, and to the inconsistency of the strategies and methods of those who handle baseball in the country, many fans ignore, or try to ignore, the ups and downs of the baseball played on the island and insist that they prefer Major League Baseball. continue reading

The first Cuban team roster was leaked in the Nicaraguan media. Then, officially informed of the team make-up, for example, the pitching staff was superior to that taken to the Caribbean Series, where it was decided to dispense with our best ever closer Jose Angel Garcia.

It did not seem respectful to confront our beginners with a national team where some of the players have experience in the best baseball in the world, but neither should they have been recruiting too many athletes past their prime who, like Frederich Cepeda and Alexander Ayala, deserve a break even though they are still fit. Lázaro Blanco collapsed from fatigue.

Some think they could give the younger players more chances to play, since that was the team (in addition the manager himself, Carlos Martí, recognized as more competitive than Guadalajara’s). The outfielder Jorge Tartabull played very little, as did the catcher Yunior Ibarra and the infielder Yórbert Sánchez.

They failed to take advantage of a good time for these boys to get some practice and Lazaro Cedeño was not given any chance to defend himself in any position, because he is perhaps, today, the only legitimate slugger and should not be confined to the position of designated hitter, because in fact there is no shortage of athletes for that position.

One wonders what was the point of this series with Nicaragua. It was not necessary to start the first day working the whole bench, but in the second and third games the nine on the field needed to be more rested. On the other hand, no one knows how long they will continue to convert relievers into opening pitchers.

Fans and specialists reviewing the last two events in which our players have participated had no end of questions, to which is added the question of whether the match up against Nicaragua is part of the preparation for the Central American and Caribbean Games of Barranquilla at the end of July.

The Nicaraguan team left much to be desired after there was much talk in the Cuban media about who would be selected and about the work done by Nemesio Porras — president of the Nicaraguan Baseball Federation — to renew and strengthen that sport in his country.

It is also worrisome, but not surprising, that the Cuban team did not play very convincingly in the magnificent Denis Martínez stadium. Several times they had to come back from behind. The first game ended and in the ninth inning of the third game the Nicaraguans were two outs away from winning. Not to mention the number of men left on base and the fluctuations in offense and pitching. The Cuban announcers insisted on convincing us that this was a “nice entertaining game.”

Apart from that, it would not be bad to learn lessons from the way baseball is developed there, with a tournament like Nicaragua’s El Pomares, on a national level, with almost 100 games, but above all with a national professional league, which can even hire up to eight foreign athletes, for the sake of the quality of the show.

It is now expected that in the series against the Mexican teams, from March 2 to 8, the strategy will be refined, the fans will be more excited and they will do better than just scoring easy wins. Much more so if the Warriors of Oaxaca and the Red Devils of Mexico, of the professional league of that country, do not seem to be at their best.

That series, with the name United for Passion, will consist of 12 games between the Latino and the Victoria de Girón, between the two Mexican teams and the Western and Eastern teams of Cuba.

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Cuba Produced 4,200 Tonnes of Organic Sugar, 60% of the Plan

Two sugar cane workers looker at the deteriorated equipment used to harvest the cane. (EFE/File)

EFE, via 14ymedio, Havana, 28 February 2018 — Cuba produced only 4,200 tonnes of organic sugar, 60% of the plan forecast for the current cane harvest, mainly due to the intense rains of recent months and the reduced concentration of sugar in the cane, the official media reported this Tuesday.

The Carlos Baliño mill in the central province of Villa Clara, the only one that makes organic sugar in Cuba, had proposed to produce 6,000 tonnes of the product that is exported mainly to the European market along with organic honey, a derivative of the milling of the cane. continue reading

The prolonged drought and the strong impact of Hurricane Irma on the island in 2017 affected sugarcane crops in the country and consequently affected the results of the harvest, says the state-run Cuban News Agency (ACN).

The head of the Analysis and Control Room of the factory, Frank Ocampo, explained that the product is currently being tested in laboratories, prior to its commercialization, because it is a product with high international demand.

The cane that is destined for the production of organic sugar dispenses with fertilizers and other chemical substances both in its cultivation and in the subsequent industrial processes.

The specialist indicated that after producing raw sugar, in a first stage, and the organic product in the intermediate milling stage, the Carlos Baliño mill will now resume the production of the raw product.

A report on the progress of the sugar harvest, which began on 5 December 2017, indicated in mid-January that rainfall had damaged 70% of cane plantations dedicated to the current harvest and had paralyzed 27 of the 53 active mills in the region.

During this period, the processing yield was reduced because the cane did not mature in time and its sucrose content was lower than the percentage needed (more than 18%) to produce sugar, according to experts in the sector.

Cuba produced some 1.8 million tonnes in the 2016-2017 sugar harvest, according to official data.

Since the 1990s, the Island’s sugar industry has suffered a drastic fall that at its lowest point produced 1.1 million tonnes in the 2009-2010 harvest.

The sector has not yet managed to recover the harvests of up to eight million tonnes reached in other times, when sugar production was considered the economic engine of Cuba.

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Cuban Human Rights Group Denounces Threat to One of its Members

Strong police searches are often accompanied by arrests. (Convivencia)

14ymedio, Havana, 1 March 2018 — The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN) denounced, in its last report on repression on the Island, the case of one of its members, Amanda Durán Dalmau, “cited twice during the month of February, under the credible threat that she would be imprisoned if she did not give up her job. ”

The document counts 347 arbitrary detentions against activists carried out by the authorities during February, a “higher number than those recorded in the two previous months,” according to the latest report of the CCDHRN. continue reading

The independent organization also notes in its report “at least 20 manifest cases of harassment and outrages,” in addition to six physical aggressions by the political police against peaceful dissidents.

“Repression for political reasons and other abuses continues to be systemic,” says the report, which denounces the Government of Raúl Castro for having “institutionalized the violation of human rights” and not complying with “more than twenty of the thirty articles of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.”

The continuation of a “discriminatory policy” against opponents who have been prevented from traveling abroad in the last month is also analyzed by the CCDHRN, which reports “half a dozen independent civil society activists” were not able to leave the Island because they were subject to an imposed travel ban.

During 2017, the authorities carried out at least 5,155 political arrests, according to the year-end report drafted previously by the CCDHRN.

The figure was the lowest since 2011, when the organization reported 4,123 arrests for political reasons, and also falls far short of the numbers for 2016, a year in which 9,940 arrests were recorded.

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Political Power is Responsible for the Widespread Corruption

Raúl Castro, Miguel Díaz-Canel, Machado Ventura y Ramiro Valdés. (EFE)

14ymedio, Miriam Celaya, Havana, 1 March 2018 — The Cuban official press recently published an extensive article, authored by journalist Lázaro Barredo, addressing the issue of corruption on the Island, its dissimilar forms, its spread, the depth it has reached – affecting even high public institutions, State Administrative Positions and officials of different levels of the legal system – and its effects on the economy and society.

The relationship of the alarming national corruption – which also contains examples of “confiscatory processes” and court cases against several individuals involved in crimes of this nature – seeks to update the official data and figures that are not usually within the reach of the public domain and to which only trustful and faithful subjects with a sufficiently proven record of services in the Castro regime are able to access, as in the case of Barredo. continue reading

However, the details offered and the terrible picture described are not surprising. Ordinary Cubans are perfectly familiar with the depth and magnitude that corruption has reached in Cuba, since it is part of the everyday reality and covers practically all aspects of life.

Ordinary Cubans are perfectly familiar with the depth and magnitude that corruption has reached in Cuba, since it is part of the everyday reality and covers practically all aspects of life

Omissions when disclosing the number of corrupt individuals in the article is not a big surprise either. There is no mention, for example, of the agents of the National Revolutionary Police and the officials of the Inspectorate, or of their habitual practices of extortion to offenders or the acceptance of bribes; crimes committed with the greatest spontaneity and absolute impunity.

If Barredo is Cuban and wants to appear honest, he cannot and should not dismiss the grave fact that corruption has penetrated so deeply that it also undermines the official institutions called in to combat it in the first line of fire.

Corruption in Cuba is like an unbeatable hydra that owes its success and persistence to its double function, apparently contradictory. On the one hand, it erodes the moral foundations of society, while on the other, its role as provider makes it an essential resource for survival in a country that is biased by shortages and instability.

Not wishing to justify crime or to minimize the perniciousness of the damage it causes, corruption in Cuba is an inevitable evil, at least under current conditions. Not because the population of this Island has a natural propensity to transgress the law, or a spontaneous will to commit a crime, but because corruption is an inherent, and also pernicious, sociopolitical and economic system imposed six decades ago, whose makers still hold the absolute political power.

Not wishing to justify crime or to minimize the perniciousness of the damage it causes, corruption in Cuba is an inevitable evil, at least under current conditions

One of the glaring omissions that stand out in Barredo’s article is that, unlike other nations of the world where corruption “is a cause of moral crisis and a discredit to governments and parties”, in the case of Cuba “this scourge is concentrated in the fundamental, in the managerial, and in the administrative management”.

The article takes for granted the immaculate integrity of our leaders, especially the political leadership, a fallacy that is also a manifestation of corruption by its author, since among the essential functions of the honest press are, among others, the questioning of political powers and the responsibility or the public opinion mobilization based on its link to the truth.

Thus, from the author’s discourse, the Palace of the Revolution not only stands out as the last stronghold of wholesomeness remaining on the Island, but in addition, the olive-green dome does not have any responsibility in the chaos and decay that undermine the country to its foundations today.

Perhaps this explains the plea for the masses – at once victims and beneficiaries of corruption – to wage another transcendental battle in the abstract in which the enemy isn’t (though not directly) “the US imperialism”. Now it’s about a much more dangerous subspecies that threatens the existence of the Cuban sociopolitical “model” in our own home.

This explains the plea for the masses to wage another transcendental battle in the abstract in which the enemy isn’t not the “U. S. imperialism”

This is a really surrealist battle which has already been lost, considering how difficult it is to imagine, for instance, a family’s humble mother betraying the illegal reseller who provides her with milk at lower prices than those at the retail stores that sell in hard currency, so that she can have it for her son’s breakfast because his right to milk on the ration card was terminated when he turned seven. Or when someone’s conscience might lead him to clash with the speculator who guarantees a sick family member the essential medicine missing from the shelves of the pharmacy networks.

According to the article, the hardened hosts of incorruptible “honest citizens” – that is, a non-existent category – should confront those who are corrupt: ambitious officials, enriched self-employed workers, notaries and judges who falsify documents or accept bribes, street resellers, merchants of agricultural products, employees of hard and national currency stores, people who evade taxes, food service employees, doctors who accept payments, and others.

One doesn’t have to be a genius to conclude that, although all of society is involved in corruption, the causes of its existence concern only those who decide the country’s policy

Barredo’s story of crooks (with significant exclusions, it must be noted) is almost as infinite as the causes of the proliferation of corruption, which discreetly remains silent. Let’s list some: the incompatibility of wages and the cost of living, the availability of food and any other kind of commercial items available for sale, which is much inferior to the demand for them, unemployment, generalized poverty, government hold back on private initiative and the productive capacities of the population, demonization of prosperity and wealth, society’s high dependence on the State, excessive centralism, absence of freedoms…

Consequently, it is not necessary to be a genius to conclude that, although corruption involves the entire society, the causes of its existence concern only those who decide the country’s policy, so that the solution to the problem depends essentially on them.

It’s a pity that the impunity of the political power in Cuba is the only thing that reaches, or perhaps surpasses such colossal magnitudes as corruption. This is why the beginning of the end of corruption will only take place when the system that empowered and sustains it disappears.

At the moment, everything indicates we will have corruption for a while.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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US Tourism Sector Asks Trump to Lower Obstacles to Travel to Cuba

Far right: US Embassy building in Havana. On September 29 the Department of State asked Americans “not to travel to Cuba” because of the alleged acoustic attacks against diplomats in the US embassy there. (14ymedio)

EFE, via 14ymedio, Washington, 1 March 2018 — A coalition of 28 tour operators and US companies specializing in educational trips to Cuba called on President Donald Trump today to reduce restrictions on travel to the island, a destination that the US government recommends “reconsidering.”

Cuba is listed as a Category 3 Alert country (“reconsider the trip”) by the US Government.

“This warning of inappropriate travel has caused fear and confusion and has drastically reduced the number of US citizens traveling to Cuba,” Andrea Holbrook, CEO of Holbrook Travel, one of the companies signing the petition said in a statement. continue reading

On September 29 the Department of State asked Americans “not to travel to Cuba” because of the alleged acoustic attacks on the island between November 2016 and August of last year against 24 Americans (embassy staff or relatives), attacks of which the USA has not yet found the cause or the guilty parties.

In addition, the Trump Government withdrew 60% of the staff of the Embassy of Havana and expelled 15 diplomats from the Cuban Embassy in Washington.

“The consequences of the actions of the Department of State have negatively affected not only US companies and institutions that send travelers to Cuba for educational purposes, but the lack of Embassy staff in Havana has also made obtaining visas very difficult,” said Kate Simpson, president of Academic Travel Abroad.

In January, the government changed Cuba’s destination category and included it in Category 3, a rating that according to the tourism sector is “unjustifiable” due to the lack of real evidence that these attacks even happened.

For nations in Category 3, the United States recommends its citizens “avoid traveling due to serious security risks.”

This group also includes five other Latin American countries: Venezuela, Haiti, Honduras, Guatemala and El Salvador.

On the other hand, the State Department is facing a deadline this week for the requirement that, six months after the reduction of the Embassy staff in Cuba, that staff must be reassigned to another location or returned to the same site.

In 2017, almost three times as many Americans traveled to Cuba compared to the previous year, according to data from the Cuban Foreign Ministry.

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The U.S. No Longer Accepts Them But Cuban Doctors Continue To Flee From Venezuela

The doctor Misael Hernández during his work as head of an intensive therapy ward in Venezuela. (Courtesy)

14ymedio, Mario J. Pentón, Bogota, 28 February 2018 — When Dayana Suárez escaped from the medical mission in the Venezuelan state Lara, the United States’ Cuban Medical Professional Parole (CMPP) program, which was created in 2006 to provide refuge for healthcare professionals fleeing the missions entrusted by La Havana, did not already exist.

Suárez is a dentist. She arrived in Colombia just over a year ago in the hope of reconstructing her life there but the impossibility of being able to legalise her immigration status forced her to go to the jungle in order to reach the Southern border of the United States to ask for political asylum. This same decision has been made by many Cuban doctors who were stranded in Bogota after the former president Barack Obama’s sudden decision to get rid of the CMPP in January 2017.

“I knew that the Parole no longer existed but I could not stay in the hell of Venezuela, neither could I return to Cuba because I feared for my future,” states the doctor on a phone call from Mexico to 14ymedio.

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The young woman of 27 years recounts that she was part way through her journey through the Panamanian jungles with a group of Cubans who abandoned her when she was having an asthma attack. For 17 days she had to deal with impractical paths and the dangers of a tropical forest alone.

“My feet were ruined by the walking. When I left the forest I could not even open my mouth because the fear squeezed it so hard that my jaw remained closed”, she relays.

Dayana received the help of the Panamanian authorities and indigenous communities. After slightly recovering she continued her journey and now she is waiting in Mexico for a letter of safe passage that will allow her to arrive at the Southern border of the United States to ask for political asylum. It is not guaranteed that they will grant it but she has “no other choice” but to try it, in her opinion.

“I ended up with grade three herpes, but if I had to I would do this journey again because I want to achieve freedom”, the doctor said.

The presence of doctors and professionals from the island who have escaped from Venezuela is concealed by the increase in Venezuelans emigrating from their country, causing a real humanitarian crisis in Colombia. According to data from Migration Colombia, more than 550,000 Venezuelans remain in the neighbouring country, many of whom are there without documents.

For Misael Hernández, a 27 year-old doctor from the province of Guantanamo, the jungle is not the route to follow. Hernández is undocumented in Colombia after having escaped the state of Sucre last year accompanied by his Venezuelan wife.

“We grew up in Cuba with an education system that taught you to serve the State. When you go on the mission you believe that you are helping a brother country and that you will be well received there, but as soon as you step on foreign land you realise that it is all a farce, a pure demagogy”, says Hernández.

Reality, however, hit him instantaneously. Barely 15 days had passed since he graduated as a doctor when he was informed that his services were required in Venezuela. After a waiting a week in Venezuela’s Maiquetia airport for his position, they sent him to Sucre, a state which has been destroyed by crime and organised crime.

“They put me in charge of a Comprehensive Diagnosis Centre (CDI). There I had to deal with the lack of medication and equipment”, he explains.

The feet of Dayana Suárez after arriving in Mexico, after a month on the road, hoping to request political asylum on the United States border. (Courtesy)

Hernández complains that the Cuban medical mission’s Venezuelan contingents falsified the revenue and medical costs. “We had to have the rooms filled by a certain percentage and use more expensive medicines to treat infections and other common illnesses. It was the way in which the Cuban government could declare more costs to Venezuela in order to obtain more benefits”, he explains.

Cuba has medical professionals deployed in 62 countries and they are its principal source of foreign currency. According to official statistics, Cuba obtains more than 11.5 billion dollars each year for the work of its professionals overseas, but the salaries of such workers rarely exceed 60 dollars a month.

The doctor recalls that more than once criminals put a gun to his head and demanded that he bring the lifeless bodies of other criminals wounded by bullets back to life: “one day they brought one with their guts out. I had to call an ambulance and scream that he was alive, even though it was not true, in order to save my life”.

Another evening he was the victim, along with a Venezuelan nurse, of a robbery in the CDI. “We remained silent whilst they were stealing so that they did not kill us. It was terrifying”, he recounts with his voice broken.

Hernández decided to flee to Colombia along with his wife, of Venezuelan origin. In order to leave the country he had to use shortcuts because the Venezuelan border force does not allow professionals from Cuba using their official red passport to leave the country by land. Since then he has been working illegally and is in Colombia without any documentation. “It is tough. It is difficult but it will always be better than being in Venezuela”, he says.

Many doctors and Cuban professionals live in the popular areas of the Kennedy district in Bogota, the Colombian capital. They have lost hope that the United States will resume the programme that allowed them to be recognised as refugees. “Many of the doctors are in Colombia, they have not had much choice but to join us and try to work here in such conditions”, tells Hernández, who calculates that at least 1,000 Cuban professionals are in the country.

Doctor Julio César Alfonso, president of the association Solidarity without Borders, an NGO with a headquarters in Miami that is dedicated to assisting professionals from Cuba that are escaping from tertiary countries, says that they are continuing to work alongside Florida’s members of congress to restore the programme that was removed by Obama.

“If it is not the Cuban Medical Professional Parole, it will be another similar programme which will allow Cuban workers to escape from this form of slavery”, he tells 14ymedio, although he refuses to offer more details. Alfonso says that he remains in contact with dozens of doctors in third countries who are still fleeing despite the end of the North American programme.

The main obstacle to the creation of a similar programme to the Parole is, according to Alfonso, “the agenda of the current president Donald Trump”, who is looking to regulate the flow of migration to the United States.

“Cuban doctors are still fleeing despite the fact that the Parole programme no longer exists. The Cuban government always said that the doctors left because they were tempted by the United States. Well are still leaving, indicating that the programme is closer to home”.

This episode forms part of the series “the new era of Cuban migration” undertaken by 14ymedio, the New Herald and Radio Ambulante with the support of the Pulitzer Center on Crisis Reporting.

Translated by: Hannah Copestake

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The ‘New Man’ Travels Havana on a Skateboard

14ymedio, Mario Penton, Miami, 1 March 2018 — Yojany Pérez, known as Mamerto, has afro style braids, piercings and likes extreme sports. He works fixing air conditioners and also has his own business making candy, which he delivers around Havana at top speed on his skateboard, wearing a T-shirt with the word ‘Libertad’ on it.

Mamerto, 28, is the star of Havana Skateboard Days, a feature film that portrays the new generation of teenagers and young Cubans living in a country outside official dogmas.

“When I skate it is like escaping from problems, from society, from all this,” says Pérez. Skating keeps you stable, “without losing your sanity.” Throughout the three years portrayed in the documentary, Mamerto watches Fernando, Raciel and Yoan, his racing partners, emigrate to the United States. “You’re left alone, fucking hell,” he laments.

Kristofer Ríos, director of the documentary along with Julian Moura-Busquets, chooses as the scenario the impact of the thawing of relations between Washington and Havana on 17 December 2014, and the death of former Cuban leader Fidel Castro in 2016.

The young people who appear in the film denounce the absence of real changes in the country for the new generations, such as the lack of interest on the part of the Cuban Sports Institute (INDER) with regards to the island’s skaterboarders.

Skateboarding began to be considered an Olympic sport in 2016 and is expected to be a part of the competition for the first time at the Tokyo Games in 2020. Skaters complain that the Government promotes other sports such as boxing or baseball, but that skateboarding has no official support

The 85-minute film includes scenes showing the frustration of some organizations in the United States that intended to build sites to support the development of skating in Cuba, but whose good intentions were truncated by the bureaucratic obstacles.

“You know the Cuban Adjustment Act, the political problems that exist with the Government of the United States, especially among the Miami community and its great strength due to the blockade,” responds Fidel Bonilla, an INDER representative, when an American proposes to build a skate park in Havana.

René González, one of the five spies imprisoned in the US who has been declared a national hero by the National Assembly of People’s Power, presided over the Festival on Wheels, demonstrating that politicization reaches even the first step taken to consolidate a national skateboarding movement .

The documentary also highlights the discreet work of groups like Amigo Skate, an American association that takes dozens of skateboards to the Island every year, many times, clandestinely, to support the local movement. In Cuba there are no shops where you can buy skateboards of equipment for skateboarding.

“We do the competitions without permission and we bring the things in hidden, as if we were mules,” says Rene Lencour, founder of Amigo Skate, who lives in the United States. Lencour believes that this is not “fair,” although he is happy to see the interaction among Cuban skaters.

In February of this year René Lecour and a group of skaters created, with their own resources, ramps for the practice of skateboarding in an old building in Ciudad Libertad, a former military base turned into a school.

The youth described the leaders of the country as “grandparents” and states without fear before the cameras that the system “no longer represents them.”

The documentary includes the torchlight march, a demonstration by thousands of students commemorating the birth of José Martí headed by Raúl Castro and Nicolás Maduro. “And why do you come?” asks the filmmaker. “I come for the jevas (girls), there’s a ton of girls,” a young skater answers without thinking twice. “All this is fictitious, like in the documentaries of North Korea,” he adds.

These young people who build their own boards with very few resources have something of the spirit of that New Man who Ernesto Guevara and Fidel Castro theorized about, a subject capable of putting the interests of his group before the personal, someone who is generous and selfless.

“Each defeat is one more lesson, a life’s blow,” says Yojany Pérez, who, if he has experience in anything, it is hitting himself trying to make the most unimaginable pirouettes.

Despite the obstacles, he continues to dream of a future for the practice of skateboarding on the island and has created a workshop to create domestic boards and make the movement grow. “If you really want to do something in your country, you have to fight, if the government tells us ‘this can not be done because it is not a Cuban sport,’ we ourselves must be able to sustain ourselves.”

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Independent Artists and Galleries Join a Biennial Outside Official Institutions

The artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is one of the promoters of this independent artistic initiative. (Adonis Milan) (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 27 February 2018 — The organizers of the Havana #00 Biennial, an independent event whose celebration is scheduled from May 5-15, have won the support of several artists and independent spaces on the island, according to Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, one of the promoters of the initiative, speaking to 14ymedio.

Among the artists who have confirmed their participation in the event are Lázaro Saavedra, winner of the 2014 National Plastic Arts Prize, and the well-known Tania Bruguera, founder of the Hannah Arendt International Institute of Artivism Hanna Arendt (INSTAR).

Also planning to participate are independent exhibition spaces and artistic projects such as Aglutinador, managed by Sandra Ceballos, and the Riera Studio of Samuel Riera. The list is completed by the independent gallery El Oficio, together with the studios Yo Soy El Que Soy and Coco Solo Social Club.

The #00 Biennal is being convened by the Museum of Politically Uncomfortable Art (MAPI), a section of the Dissidents Museum located in Old Havana.

Otero Alcántara explains that within the 10-day program they plan to stage activities in different areas of the city. In each space they plan to fuse the visual arts with other cultural manifestations.

“One day is dedicated to Alamar with the Omni-Zona-Franca project and in the municipality of Habana del Este we are going to call a festival of sand sculptures, there will be performances, graffiti and concerts at night,” he says.

Another day of the independent event will take place in Guanabacoa, around in the studio of David de Omni, an experimental musician who works in rap and reggae, but also poetry.

Artists from Spain, Colombia, Mexico, Brazil, the United States, Romania and several countries in the African continent have also confirmed their participation, according to Otero Alcántara, who explains that some still prefer to maintain their support anonymously to avoid reprisals from the authorities, among which would be preventing them from entering the country.

Others, such as the Mexican Yvelin Buenrostro and the Spaniards Antonio Mas and Alicia Torres, have already decided to make their presence public, including the Cubans Jose Luis Marrero, Yuri Obregon, Los Serones, Adonis Milan, Amaury Pacheco, Iris Ruiz, Yasser Castellanos, Sam 33, 2 + 2 = 5, Happy Zombie, Yoanny Aldaya, Italo Expósito and José Ernesto Alonso.

Since this alternative biennial was initially announced, organizers explained that it was conceived “before the decision of the Ministry of Culture, the National Council of Plastic Arts and the Wilfredo Lam Center to postpone the celebration of the XIII Biennial of Havana until 2019, as a consequence of the damages caused by Hurricane Irma. The official biennial was originally scheduled from October 5 to November 5, 2018.”

To finance the independent event, its developers have started a Crowdfunding campaign through which they hope to obtain the $20,000 that they have set as budget to move the project forward.

With this arts festival they seek to “support the development of Cuban culture at a time when the country is experiencing a strong crisis of faith, an increase in the banality and despair.” The managers of the initiative consider it “essential not to delay the Biennial event and to implement if with the minimum resources.”

After announcing the schedule of the event, the Association of Artists of the Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC) circulated an email warning that “unscrupulous people” were “trying to organize provocations” to divide the artistic guild.

The last edition of the Havana Biennial was held between May and June 2015. In its three decades of life, the artistic event has gone through different stages where creative effervescence prevailed over the harmful effects of economic crisis and censorship.

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Four Members of the Pro Press Freedom Association Prevented from Traveling

José Antonio Fornaris, president of the Pro Press Freedom Association. (Capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 27 February 2018 — On Saturday immigration authorities prevented four members of the board of the Pro Press Freedom Association (APLP) from leaving the country. They were headed to Trinidad and Tobago to participate in a journalism workshop, the president of the independent organization, Jose Antonio Fornaris confirmed to 14ymedio.

Julio César Álvarez, Amarilis Cortina, Miriam Herrera and Fornaris themselves unable to board the plane at the José Martí International Airport on their way to Port of Spain, because the each had exit restrictions applied to them. The four activists passed the Caribbean Airlines check-in but they failed to pass the immigration checkpoint.

In the National System of National Identification (SUIN) database, which uses both the Civil Registry and the Directorate of Immigration and Foreigners (DIE), the four appear as “regulated,” although officials in the office of Immigration and Foreigners do not know the reasons, they claimed. “I only follow orders,” one official clarified.

“None of the four had been regulated before,” Fornaris told this newspaper. The members of the APLP plan to file a complaint with the Office of the Prosecutor to demand that they be given the right to exit and enter the country.

“What happened is a clear violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, which states that everyone has the right to leave any country, including their own, and to return to their country,” the independent journalist explains.

Fornaris notes that “in recent days several members of the APLP were summoned by the political police to interviews, in which they received threats of different kinds.”

The president of the organization believes that both the police summonses and the current denial of the right to travel are due to the fact that last December the group sent a report to the Human Rights Council of the United Nations (UN) on freedom of the press. in Cuba.

This Saturday, the activists Jacqueline Madrazo Luna and Dora Leonor Mesa Crespo, members of the Citizens for Racial Integration Committee (CIR) who had been invited to participate in the 167th session of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, an international body, were also prevented from traveling; they were on their way to a human rights meeting sponsored by the Organization of American States, to be held in Bogotá, Colombia.

What happened with these independent journalists and activists is part of a new tactic used against civil society groups on the island. To the arrests, the confiscation of personal belongings, the raids of their homes and the imposition of judicial charges are added, more and more frequently, travel bans under any pretext.

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Cienfuegos Shaken By Another Knife Crime

Friends and relatives attended the funeral of Luis Santacruz Labrada, stabbed to death in the city of Cienfuegos. (Courtesy)

14ymedio, Justo Mora / Mario Pentón, Cienfuegos/Miami, 24 February 2018 — He was only 23 years old with an unquenchable desire for dancing and music. Luis Santacruz Labrada literally knew each of the songs of the national reggaeton and the places where young Cienfuegueros meet. His murder by stabbing, on February 14, has shocked a city whose tranquility has been one of its greatest attractions.

“Luis danced and sang, that was his life,” says his aunt, Regla Santacruz, who lived with the young man. Although the investigation is still in progress, some relatives explained to 14ymedio that on Valentine’s Day Santacruz Labrada decided to go out to the Malecon, a popular place among young people. continue reading

“Luis had a relationship with a minor girl, but she left him for another reggaetonero named Tito. On the night of February 13, Tito and Luis met casually on the boardwalk and talked about it,” explains a close relative who prefers not to be identified.

In the early hours of February 14, Luis separated from the group of friends he was with and received a call to his cell phone. “They told him to come to a certain place and he thought it could be the ex-girlfriend, but when he got there they stabbed him,” the same source recounts.

Santacruz Labrada was stabbed four times, one of which went through a lung, according to his relatives. More than an hour after the attack he was picked up by a taxi driver who took him to the Provincial Hospital, but it was too late.

“They could not save his life. It is the second tragedy that we have had like this in the family,” says the family member. Luis’s father was killed in Havana four years ago, stabbed in the middle of a brawl.

Tito, the alleged murderer, is 16 years old and is being held in the Provincial Delegation of the Ministry of the Interior in the Pastorita district. 14ymedio talked with relatives of the alleged murderer who confessed that the enmity between the two young men “had been coming for some time.”

“Tito argued with Luis early and that day he was drunk,” said his relative, who also said that the alleged murderer will not be transferred to the provincial prison Ariza because he is under the age of majority.

14ymedio tried to confirm this version with the National Police Department of Investigations in charge of the case but the officers explained by telephone that they could not give statements to the press.

Santacruz Labrada lived in the Reina neighborhood, located on the peninsula of Majagua, a tongue of land where the Jagua port workers settled.

“Most of the boys in this area go out into the street with a knife in their pocket. People do fight with fists like they used to,” laments Yanelys Verdecia, a Cienfuegos woman from the Reina neighborhood who was shocked by the crime.

Official media are reluctant to address the issue of violence in Cuba. Nor are there statistics that allow drawing conclusions about the incidence of this social scourge. Laritza Diversent, lawyer and director of the Cubalex Legal Information Center, recently exiled to the United States, regrets that neither the opposition groups nor the government facilitate a debate on violence on the island.

“The number of violent acts is only known to the authorities, so we do not have the tools to talk as a society about the importance of this phenomenon in the country,” says the lawyer.

According to the Public Health Yearbook, 572 people died in 2016, victims of violence, but there is no data on the number of assaults without fatalities.

Diversent explains that during her time as an independent lawyer in Havana, she worked on several murder cases and the number of young people involved in these events was notable, especially in poor and marginalized neighborhoods. Article 263 of the Cuban Penal Code establishes penalties of 15 to 30 years in prison for murderers.

The city of Cienfuegos also wept last September for the murder of Leidy Maura Pacheco Mur, 18 years old. The young woman, whose baby was then only 10 months old, was kidnapped by three men from her own community in Junco Viejo. They raped her and subsequently murdered her and buried her in the Plan Mango area.

“It’s terrible that these things happen. They kicked my nephew to death a few years ago at the Rancho Luna service station and the law is still very gentle with the murderers,” Aimé Montes de Oca told this newspaper. The murderers of her relative are serving 15-year prison sentences in Ariza, the provincial prison, but once they have completed half of the sentence they can get parole if they have shown good behavior.

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Testimony of a Lawyer "Controlled" by the Police

In 2008 Wilfredo Vallín created the Cuban Legal Association, the objectives of which include instructing citizens in legal matters. (@observacuba)

14ymedio,Wilfredo Vallín, Havana, 23 February 2018 — In recent months, and having been invited by different institutions to many events, I have been repeatedly detained by customs control, where I have been informed that I am “controlled,” which means that I am prohibited from leaving the national territory.

This has happened to me on three consecutive occasions. The problem for me has not been so much in the prohibition itself as in the fact that no one seemed to know either the reasons, nor the people behind it, nor the legal grounds for a decision of that nature. continue reading

Despite my efforts to clarify these facts, I could not obtain any reasonably satisfactory answer. There simply was not one, nor did those who made that decision show their faces or give any justification.

On February 13, early in the morning, the political police came to my home telling me they were going to conduct a search. I requested the order from the competent authority and they showed it to me, although it seems they didn’t welcome my insistence that I receive a copy.

To be fair I must say that they showed concern for the state of my health, asked if I had had breakfast, if I felt like my blood pressure was high (they came with a doctor), if I had to take or had already taken some medication, and so on. As it is required by law, they found two witnesses, my neighbors, and the operation began which lasted practically until noon. I told them that they had the obligation to give me a copy of what they seized, which at the end of the search they did.

Continuing the pattern of narrating the events as they occurred, I will add that they were careful to search and then put everything back the way it was, except, of course, what they confiscated.

At the end of the search they told me that I should accompany them and they took me to Aguilera police station, in the area of Luyanó, where the major in charge of the search operation informed me that they were going to open a criminal proceedin against me for illicit enrichment.

During the time I was in Aguilera, both the major and Agent Rolando, who told me he was the official who “sees to the Cuban Legal Association,” talked with me for a long time, which was very useful because I finally understood their reasons for prohibiting my leaving the country, the reasons for a search of that nature and, most amazingly, my “illicit enrichment.”

In 2008 I decided to create the Cuban Legal Association, one of whose purposes, which appears in its statement of motives, or presentation, is the legal instruction of citizens, given the ignorance of the people on this subject. Before carrying out any activity, we went to the Registrar of Associations of the Ministry of Justice to formalize the registration.

I am not going to offer a detailed explanation of this story, which lasted two years and reached the Supreme Court twice, because the first steps we took ran into the iron silence of the Registrar of Associations and the Ministry of Justice itself despite Article 63 of the Constitution which guarantees the right of citizens to address complaints and petitions to the authorities and to receive the appropriate attention and responses in an appropriate time, in accordance with the law.

In any case, the Cuban Legal Association has been providing services from the date of its creation to the extent possible (as we have never been allowed to represent anyone in court) and without, in fact, in all that time there having been, on the part of the authorities an absolutely negative position on the advice or some seminars we offer.

Nonetheless, the times we were visited by the police they always pointed out to us that the fact that we were visiting and advising people who were openly recognized as disaffected with the prevailing political system was a problem.

Our response has always been that when these people go to the [officially licensed] collective law firms for advice or legal assistance and the lawyers learn their identity, they refuse to work with them “to avoid problems.” In my opinion, they do not want to take into account at all the principles of equal rights before the law and without discrimination, on which the Constitution is based.

State institutions educate everyone, from the earliest age, on the principle of the equality of human beings. Not defending or advising those people because of their way of thinking directly contradicts Articles 41 and 42 of the Constitution, articles that we, in the Cuban Legal Association, demand that they comply with.

Everything that has happened to me in recent weeks is consistent, in my opinion, precisely with the legal instruction of the population, with which some do not agree. I have seen it even more clearly in relation to the recent elections that have taken place in the country.

Many citizens have approached us to ask if they are may or may not participate [as a candidate] in the electoral process. To answer this and other questions related to the current electoral law we have studied it carefully and meticulously and we know in which cases a citizen is prohibited from participating. In cases where the individual did not incur any cause to prevent his candidacy, we have told him that his participation is totally and absolutely legitimate, precisely because of what the aforementioned articles and the current Electoral Law establish.

To prohibit the participation of citizens who are making use of their total and absolute right to do so in accordance with what is legally established, is to violate the electoral law itself, as well as the Constitution of the Republic, and to act totally and absolutely arbitrarily.

The arbitrariness in Law consists in the public power, with a mere act of force, completely ignoring what is the norm or criterion in force in a concrete and singular case, without responding to any rule of a general nature, and without creating a new one to cancel the previous one or replace it.

The arbitrary mandate is one that is not based on a general principle — applicable to all analogous cases — but responds to a simple “because,” “because I feel like it”; in short, to a caprice or whim that does not derive from the law.

It is an essential characteristic of a legal norm by necessity linked to the same power that dictated it, and this is understood, as long as it does not deviate from the general character in use of competence of the same rank which had originated earlier. The powers are tied to the legal norms and woek in the measure in which they adapt to them and within the faculties that they grant.

It is, therefore, characteristic of the Law to establish a regular, inviolable, stable ordination (insofar as it is not repealed) that, while it rules, is equally binding on the citizen and on the power. I think the above is self-explanatory. It is inadmissible that the highest authorities allow the violation of the laws of the nation and, while demanding compliance to some, violate others without further ado.

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The Tainos Did Not Die Out, They Survive in the Caribbean, Report Says

Reconstruction of a Taino village in Cuba. (Michal Zalewski / cc)

EFE, via 14ymedio, 20 February 2018 — The Taínos, an indigenous ethnic group associated with the inhabitants of the Caribbean, did not die out as it is frequently affirmed but were integrated into the new civilization after the arrival of the Spaniards, while still maintaining their roots, says a study published this Monday.

The original genetic sample used by the authors of the research, published yesterday in the PNAS journal of the National Academy of Sciences (PNAS), came from the tooth of a woman found on Eleuthera Island in the Bahamas, who lived between the 8th and 10th centuries, at least 500 years before Christopher Columbus arrived in America. continue reading

Comparing the ancestral genome of this native of the Bahamas with those of current Puerto Ricans, the researchers found that they were “closer to the Taíno ethnic group than to any other group of indigenous people in the Americas.”

However, the researchers consider that these characteristics are not unique to the inhabitants of Puerto Rico and hope that future studies will find “similar genetic legacies in other Caribbean communities.”

“It’s a fascinating discovery. Many history books say that the indigenous population of the Caribbean was almost entirely annihilated but people who think they resemble the Taino have always argued for their continued existence,” said Hannes Schroeder, a professor at the University of Copenhagen and lead author of the study.

“Now we know they were right all along: there has been some form of genetic continuity in the Caribbean,” said Schroeder, who led the research as part of the Nexus 1492 project.

The investigation includes the testimony of Jorge Estévez, a Taíno descendant who, despite growing up in New York, remembers the stories of his grandmother and his ancestors. The results of the study confirm what Estevez heard as a child.

“This shows that the true story (of the Tainos) is certainly one of assimilation and not total extinction,” said Estevez who works at the National Museum of American Indians and participated as an assistant to the project’s research team.

Another important aspect contributed by the study is the possibility of confirming the theory that many of the natives who inhabited the Caribbean islands have their origins in the Arahuacos, originating in the north of South America.

“I am truly grateful to the researchers, although this may have been a subject of scientific research for them, for us the descendants is truly liberating and stimulating,” Estévez concluded.

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The Arrival of the Potato and the President, in Priority Order

All life seems to revolve around a tuber that disappeared for months from state market stalls. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, Havana, 28 February 2018 — Daybreak and the morning is different. An agitation has been running through the neighborhood since the previous afternoon, when the neighbors spotted a potato truck while it was unloading at the market on the corner. The arrival of the product caused early risings, fights and even the resale of dozens of pounds in the surrounding area.

A certain aroma of fried potato has been wafting through the air for hours and in the hallways people are exchanging ways of preparing the food “using little oil” or “so that it lasts longer.” All life seems to revolve around a tuber that for months has disappeared from the state market stalls, where now sales are limited to just five pounds per person. continue reading

One wonders if such an excitement would have been generated on the island if the first official date for the departure of Raul Castro from the presidency had been adhered to. What if he had finished his term on February 24? Would people be talking about the issue as much as they are talking today about the arrival of the potato?

Probably not. The lack of enthusiasm for an event that analysts are calling the most important historical milestone of the last decades on this Island, the “change of an era,” or the end of the reign of the surname Castro, seems to have many reasons.

There is a widespread opinion that nothing is going to change in the country, no matter who takes the helm. Passions around this succession have also cooled in part because the wait has been too long. For some it has been decades, or their whole lives, and fatigue has finally caught up with them.

Citizens share the perception that “no matter what happens up there” they will not be the ultimate beneficiaries. However, the fundamental disinterest arises from the lack of surprises in a process organized to ensure that nothing changes.

Thin slices of potato in a frying pan can have more unforeseen results than a new face for the Cuban president. There is more mystery and excitement in the arrival in the neighborhood of a truck loaded with a product that nobody has seen for months, than in the boring political game of replacing one name with another but keeping the system unchanged.

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At 71, Moises Leonardo Prosecuted for Promoting Human Rights at the UN

Moisés Leonardo Rodríguez has been accused by the authorities of “clandestine printing.” (Hablemos Press)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 22 February — Promoting Human Rights and advising civil society groups has cost the activist Moisés Leonardo Rodríguez an accusation from the authorities of “clandestine printing.” After a spectacular police search of his home last Tuesday, and the confiscation of several of his tools of the trade, the opponent was released on Wednesday.

In conversation with 14ymedio, Rodríguez, 71, explained that a State Security official attributed his detention to the advice he has given to eight civil society groups “to submit reports to the [United Nations] Universal Periodic Review (UPR),” which the Cuban Government must pass in May. Through this system, the international organization evaluates the quality of human rights in its member states. continue reading

The activist, coordinator of the Corriente Martiana*, also offered his experience so that a dozen independent organizations can jointly present a report on violations of their rights, which will be part of the documents presented to the UPR.

He explains that, in addition, when asked about the reasons for the search, the agents mentioned the work promoting human rights carried out by Ernesto Guy Perez, focused on teaching and training in the preparation of these reports according to UN standards. “This has annoyed them greatly,” he said.

“On Tuesday after nine o’clock in the morning, six individuals dressed in civilian clothes arrived at my house with a search warrant searching for counter-revolutionary objects and documents,” he told this newspaper.

The activist related how among those who searched his house was an investigator from the Ministry of the Interior, named Iturralde. Two supposed neighbors [as required by law] who live in Cabañas (Artemisa), witnessed the operation. They confiscated “a laptop, a computer tower, a USB stick, a printer and even a blackboard.”

The uniformed agents also took “United Nations documents and others submitted to the Government of Raúl Castro, such as the proposal Para una Cuba Martiana.” The search was so intense that the agents did not hesitate to take even the Constitution of the Republic of Cuba, according to Leonardo Rodríguez.

At the end of the search, the activist was taken to Artemisa’s police station along with his youngest daughter and his wife, Ileana de los Ángeles, who accompanied him on a voluntary basis. During the more than 24 hours the detention lasted he refused to drink water, eat, take medications or talk to the agents.

A police investigator assured Rodriguez that they will not return any of the papers found in his house and that he was being prosecuted for the crime of “hiding of printed matter,” which sanctions the preparation or dissemination of publications that do not indicate the place of printing, or that do not specify the identification of their author or their origin.

“They warned me that my eldest daughter, who lives in Havana, could not travel outside the country and that, in my case, I will never travel.” Leticia, his daughter, is also an activist and for the government opponent it is clear that these prohibitions “are issues that State Security imposes outside the law.” Among the illegal actions are threats against his family, something that worries him “extremely.”

The Office of the UN Human Rights Commissioner condemned the “illegal arrest” of the activist on his Twitter account. The entity was concerned about a “pattern of short-term arrests” against Cuban activists and the “confiscation of equipment to limit the exercise of fundamental freedoms.”

The crime of “clandestine printing” of which Rodriguez is accused can be punished, according to the Penal Code, with a sentence of “deprivation of liberty from three months to a year” or a fine of 300 CUP.

Earlier this month, four members of the Pro Press Freedom Association were questioned by State Security after sending a report on press freedom to the UN last December. The document includes the pressures, arbitrary arrests and confiscations of tools of the trade against independent journalists during the last year.

*Translator’s note: Corriente Martiana [(José) Martí Current] describes itself as a ’patriotic, humanitarian and cultural organization in service to Cuban civil society.”

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