14ymedio – Page 353 – Translating Cuba

Authoritarianism and Coronavirus, Two Evils That Come Together

Inside the hospitals it will be something else: an overexploited medical staff without union rights, dilapidated facilities and a chronic lack of medicines. (Radio Rebelde)

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, Havana, 12 March 2020 — Invisible and potentially mortal. This is the enemy that keeps the world in check. Cuba officially confirmed this Wednesday that three Italian tourists tested positive for coronavirus and it is expected that in the next few days the number of infections will increase and that the authorities will take measures of great social impact. An authoritarian system functions like a permanent barracks or as a field hospital, so it has some “advantages” in an epidemic compared to democracies.

The first “superiority” shown by these types of regimes in the face of any emergency is their ability to control information. That ability to dominate the data was deployed in China during the first weeks of the appearance of Sars-Coronavirus-2, during which the few who dared to reveal what was happening were practically branded as traitors. Such was the sad case of Dr. Li Wenliang, accused by the authorities of “spreading rumors” – which could mean a high prison term – and who ended up dying of the virus.

Among some, the fact that only this Wednesday positive cases have been confirmed on the Island and that it was clear that no Cuban volunteer working abroad has contracted the disease has raised alarms. Is the script to “put make up” on the problem – that is to try to hide it – also being applied here? A strategy that would yield – facing the world – that would be extremely dangerous if it failed to convey to the population the real magnitude of the problem. continue reading

If Cuban authorities use the same policy that has been followed for years with regards to the number of people infected or killed by dengue fever is put into practice, the true incidence of Covid-19 in Cuba will never be known.

Accustomed to behaving like generals towards their soldiers and not like public officials towards their citizens, Cuban leaders can implement absolutely invasive and coercive measures at the social level without the need to decree a state of emergency. They do not require special permits to remove potential infected persons from their homes by force, to lock up suspected cases in hospitals, or to cancel all mobility across the country at once. In this, they “beat” democratic models by a landslide.

With an extensive network of informants throughout the national territory, the Plaza of the Revolution only needs to include sneezing and fever among the acts that must be reported, so that this network of snitches is launched to hunt for possible infections. Now, those who report their neighbor for expressing an anti-government slogan or a criticism of the Communist Party will be rewarded, as will those who report that a neighbor “looks sick,” “coughs a little” or “has shut themselves up at home and does not want to open the door.”

Like all strict paternalism, in this situation there will be no shortage of intense propaganda. Those who succeed in overcoming the coronavirus will not do so because the treatment worked or the medical personnel tried hard, but because “the Revolution did not leave him defenseless.” For a few weeks the disease will take on the role of the eternal enemy of the North and each case will be presented as a patriotic and political battleground from which one must emerge unscathed in order, among other things, to demonstrate to ideological adversaries that Cubans live under the best of all possible models.

Official propaganda will also take the opportunity to present the Island’s Health system as infallible, accurate and highly developed. Something that will serve to please those outside our borders who continue to believe the myth of the high level of care of the Cuban hospital network and who will point to “the performance of little David” as an example to follow in their respective countries. Inside the hospitals it will be something else: an overexploited medical staff without union rights, dilapidated facilities and a chronic lack of medicines will star in the “coronavirus days.”

But, unlike in other places, the narrative of that other face will be prohibited and whoever tells it could be legally prosecuted for damaging the country. Freedom of expression and of the press will become as scarce as facemasks. Control over what patients, family and friends post on social media could also be tightened. A post on Facebook, an image posted on Twitter may become an act of treason in the coming days.

But where democracies surpass any authoritarianism when it comes to emergencies is in being able to count on citizen participation. As the most recent devastating earthquake that affected Mexico City demonstrated, when people gather together and work as a team, they can go where a State cannot. Some of this was verified in Havana after the tornado that affected several areas of the capital in January 2019: the first arrivals came carrying food and water and they were people without the responsibility, uniform or credential to do so.

If that support network is outlawed, as is often the case in an authoritarian regime that wants to control everything, including solidarity, confronting the coronavirus may not be as effective as it needs to be. Especially because if services and supplies are cut, help between neighbors and families will become vital. How will one watch over so many old people on this vulnerable and lonely Island? Can a government deal with all that?

It should be added that the excessive control of the State alone has made the Cuban economy an unproductive disaster. In the country, there are daily crowds to buy food and move from place to place, a risk factor in the spread pattern that the disease follows. To top it off, few families have the reserves to stay inside their homes for days and thus avoid contagion. The same authoritarian system that boasts of being ready to face the coronavirus has left citizens in the most fragile defenselessness. It is on this point where democracies can excel, without a doubt.

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Three Italian Tourists Arriving in Cuba Have Tested Positive for Coronavirus

“They were immediately admitted to the Pedro Kourí Tropical Medicine Institute,” the health authorities assure. (Sld.cu)

14ymedio, Havana, 12 March 2020 — Three Italian tourists who arrived in Cuba last Monday have tested positive for the coronavirus. The travelers arrived on the island on March 9 through José Martí International Airport in Havana and traveled east to Trinidad, in Sancti Spíritus province, according to the primetime television newscast.

One day after their arrival, the travelers presented respiratory symptoms, so “they were immediately admitted to the Pedro Kourí Tropical Medicine Institute (IPK)” and this Wednesday, March 11, the laboratory of that hospital confirmed that “they were positive for the new coronavirus. ” According to the authorities, the tourists are being treated and their situation is favorable.

The local newspaper Escambray has spoken with Manuel Rivero Abella, provincial director of Health in Sancti Spíritus, who gave details on the situation of the contacts of those affected. Seven people were physically close to them and could potentially have been infected: the car driver, the tour operator and five workers at the Trinidad hotel where they stayed. continue reading

All of them have been sent to the Doctor Faustino Pérez Provincial Rehabilitation Hospital, a center designated for the isolation of these cases, although for now they remain asymptomatic. If their condition remains the same, they will be sent home under extreme surveillance for follow-up by epidemiologists and health teams.

“If in the next few days they have any clinical symptoms, they will undergo a nasopharyngeal swab and, if confirmed, they will go to the Villa Clara Military Hospital as designed in the Plan for the Prevention and Control of Covid-19” Rivero Abella said. The province has 42 isolation beds.

On the other hand, on Monday it was learned that three students from the Faculty of Architecture of the José Antonio Echeverría Technological University of Havana, known as Cujae, were sent to the IPK under observation on suspicion that they were infected with the coronavirus, although the official media have not confirmed that information.

José Antonio Echeverría Technological University of Havana, known as Cujae.

An architecture student, a friend of the three hospitalized, confirmed to 14ymedio that there are three students who were in contact with a person who has tested positive for the virus after his return from Panama.

“They are not letting them speak directly to anyone,” said one of the students who has not been able to communicate, even through instant messaging, with the young people after they were admitted.

Through WhatsApp, the students shared photographs and many of the details of the process of arrival at the IPK where they are being seen, but at one point they stopped interacting through that means.

An internal statement made public at the Faculty of Architecture explained that the students had had contact with three professors and that those specific classes would not be held this week “as a preventive and security measure.”

The text insists that classes will not be suspended until there is a medical opinion, but the opening of the “March 13” sporting events and also the Prats and New School international workshops will be canceled.

The administration of the school also recommends “maintaining calm and serenity” and complying with “hygiene and sanitary measures guided by the Ministry of Public Health.”

The document says that as soon as they have “the information with certainty” it will be communicated immediately and “appropriate and corresponding measures will be taken.”

Internal students of the Faculty of Architecture regret that the call for extreme cleanliness and hygiene occurs at a time of difficulties with the supply of water and other cleaning supplies. “Now the water arrives only once every two days and when it arrives it’s a joke, the tanks are disgusting,” one of the students told this newspaper.

President Donald Trump suspended all trips to the United States from Europe, with the exception of the United Kingdom, for at least 30 days to “prevent new cases from entering,” part of several “strong but necessary measures.” The decision has already been criticized by the EU.

On the continent, at least 1,192 cases and more than 30 deaths have been reported, the largest number being located in the United States, where the virus is present in almost 40 of the 50 states and, according to local data, has left 37 dead, the majority of them in Washington state. PAHO data also reflects deaths in Argentina (1), Canada (1) and Panama (1) and includes the first two patients in Honduras, where on Wednesday President Juan Orlando Hernández called to act “with citizen responsibility” to avoid the spread of the disease.

The Bolivian transitional government — after reporting the first two infections in that country — declared a “national emergency” to facilitate the use of state resources in actions against COVID-19. Several countries, such as El Salvador, Argentina, Colombia, Peru, Chile and Guatemala, began to impose quarantines on travelers from Europe or China.

One of the strictest measures was taken by the President of El Salvador, Nayib Bukele, who declared the entire country in quarantine on Wednesday and prohibited the entry of foreigners for 21 days, as well as classes and crowds of more than 500 people such as concerts and football matches. A similar decision was made in Guatemala, where there are no confirmed cases and as a preventive action all travelers arriving in the country from Europe by air will be quarantined.

Chile, where there are 23 confirmed cases, demanded that travelers entering from Spain and Italy, even if they are Chilean citizens, pledge to remain isolated for at least two weeks. The Governments of Argentina, Colombia and Peru did the same but also included travelers from France. In the case of Colombia, where yesterday it was reported that infections rose from 3 to 9, travelers arriving from France, Spain, Italy or China should enter “self-isolation in their homes for 14 days.”

Meanwhile, Argentina, which reports 21 cases and one death from the disease, ordered that citizens arriving from nations with a high circulation of coronaviruses go into quarantine. This isolation will also include footballers who play in foreign clubs in whose countries the coronavirus circulates and who are summoned to the senior team.

In Europe, Italy continues to be a concern, the focus of the greatest exponential growth so far, with 827 deaths and more than 12,000 cases. The Italian government has decided to enact a total blockade of the country, with the closure of all businesses, with the exception of those that offer basic necessities, such as supermarkets or pharmacies, for a couple of weeks.

Services such as public transport, or essential services such as banking, postal, insurance, are guaranteed; and also agricultural activity.

In France and Spain, where the evolution of the disease is very similar, with approximately 2,300 infected and around fifty deaths, measures of social distancing have been imposed with the closings of shows, museums, educational centers and other places where people gather in large numbers. In addition, the population has been called on to minimize their movements and teleworking is promoted in order to reduce the peak of simultaneous infections that congests the health systems, something that has been achieved with greater luck by Germany, where despite having a number of detected cases similar to that of its neighbors, there have only been three deaths.

The good news came today from China, where the peak has come to an end. “New cases continue to decline. We believe that we have exceeded the peak of the current epidemic outbreak, which now remains at a low level. Medical care should be the highest priority but there is no truce, we must intensify prevention and control efforts,” Health spokesman Mi Feng has said.

According to Mi, the number of confirmed new cases in Wuhan, the capital of Hubei province and epicenter of the outbreak, has been reduced to single digits for the first time, with just eight new cases in the latest official count. Likewise, the commission has reported that new cases of contagion of the coronavirus in all China added 15 positives in the last 24 hours to the 24 recorded the previous day.

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The Cuban Regime Has Benefited From Its Agreement With The EU

Federica Mogherini and Bruno Rodríguez in 2016, when the agreement that replaced the Common Position was settled. (EEAS)

14ymedio, Miriam Celaya, Havana, 10 March 2020 – Three years have passed since December 2016, when Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla shook hands exultantly with a smiling Federica Mogherini, high representative of the European Union (EU) for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy.

The head of Castro’s diplomacy had every reason to celebrate. After more than two decades of disagreements and the existence of a Common Position since 1996 that conditioned cooperation with Cuba on a democratic transition, the establishment of a rule of law and positive developments in the field of human rights, the signing of an Agreement of a Political Dialogue and Cooperation Agreement between the EU and Cuba had finally been reached, aimed at “achieving a constructive and mutually beneficial approach between the parties.”

The signing of the new agreement was proclaimed by the Island’s official press as “another Cuban triumph against the unilateral and interventionist policies” of the Common Position.

In fact, the signing of the new agreement was proclaimed by the Island’s official press as “another Cuban triumph against the unilateral and interventionist policies” of the Common Position, which was thus automatically repealed. continue reading

However, an analysis of the articles that underlie both EU policies towards Cuba is enough to find that in reality, though there are certain different nuances in their formulations, they are not so different in their content.

It is obvious that much of the content of the Common Position served as the basis when drafting the provisions of the Dialogue Agreement, although there are two relevant differentiating elements aimed at satisfying the demands of the Cuban side: the 2016 agreement does not include the first section where the objective of the EU in its relations with Cuba was specified “to favor a process of transition towards pluralistic democracy and respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms as well as a sustainable recovery and improvement of the standard of living of the Cuban people”; and as a second and major difference, the new agreement exceeds the unilateral character of the previous one.

Another similarity that the two agreements share is the complexity of the Cuban situation at the time they were implemented, both in the interior of the Island –with an economy mired in an insurmountable crisis, a growing social unrest and worsening repression – as well as in its difficult relationship with most countries in the region, currently in the midst of a new political map that is adverse to the Castro cupola, especially with the United States.

Now, among the reasons mentioned by the European side to withdraw the Common Position and replace it with another agreement is the ineffectiveness of the Common Position itself, since far from promoting changes towards democracy and in favor of human rights within Cuba, it produced a distancing that prevented the EU from favorably “influencing” Cuba in this regard.

Another stated reason was that despite the policy freeze, throughout the time the Common Position was maintained, there were economic and commercial ties on the part of European businessmen.

Another of the stated reasons was that, despite the policy freeze, throughout the time the Common Position was maintained, there were economic and commercial ties on the part of European businessmen, mainly Spanish, with the Havana regime.

Last but not least, the EU wanted to “distance itself” from the economic sanctions and diplomatic isolation policies applied by Washington against the Island. With this, an external element was introduced in the rugged drift of the EU’s relations with the longest-running dictatorship in this Hemisphere: lo and behold, the powerful northern neighbor emerged as an opportune wild card from someone else’s trick.

Seen this way, it is not very clear if what the Dialogue Agreement is about is to approach Cuba “and its people” or to confront US foreign policy towards the Castro regime, and in the process, to secure the economic and commercial interests of its reckless entrepreneurs on the Island, and to try to save, to some extent, payment of Havana’s huge debt to its European creditors.

Because if it were really good-natured, it is not explained that in three years of the new romance between Europe and Cuba – where apparently there have been some disagreements, but reconciliations and inexplicable tolerance have prevailed – the EU continues to assume such a lukewarm position before the flagrant violations of human rights in the Island in the midst of a repressive wave that already reaches the entire society, including independent artists and journalists, opponents, self-employed workers, LGTBI activists, animal rights defenders, Cubans residing abroad and any citizen who has the courage to question even the slightest disposition of the totalitarian power that chokes us.

In contrast to the Cuban reality, the entire content of the section which, under the heading of democracy and human rights ennobles the letter of the agreement, is in fact a macabre joke.

Because in these three years of buttering people up and smiles between Castroism and the EU – not “between the EU and Cuba” – we have seen the unleashing of a repressive escalation spread throughout the entire society amid an incessant tide of arrests, police citations, the so-called regulations that already prevent over 200 Cubans from leaving the country freely, judicial farces that have unjustly jailed independent journalist Roberto de Jesús Quiñones, the opposition leader José Daniel Ferrer and more recently the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, among many other abuses, and where the lack of political will of the Palace of the Revolution has been clearly defined to comply even with the minimum agreements signed in Brussels on December 2016 and which, according to the EU, constitute essential conditions of the same.

During all this time, starting with the preamble, the Cuban side has circumvented the agreement, which establishes verbatim both parties’ commitment to “their respect for universal human rights established in the Universal Declaration of Human Rights and other relevant international instruments on the subject; their commitment to the recognized principles of democracy, good governance and the rule of law; the need for greater cooperation in the field of promoting justice, citizen security and migration…”, among other basic principles by which every civilized or moderately democratic society must be governed and that, apparently, we Cubans have not deserved in the last 61 years.

If the EU really means for the commitment in the field of human rights not to become a dead letter, how and when will it declare itself in relation to the current wave of repression that is gripping Cuban independent civil society?

In its three years of validity, the Dialogue Agreement has not shown any advantage over the previous EU policy, at least not for ordinary Cubans, and even less so for the internal dissidence, that part of the civil society now conveniently ignored.

Another result of the agreement is that it has benefitted the dictatorship, which continues to gain time and increasingly clings to power, ensuring its continuity while crushing with an iron fist all independent thought spaces that open on the Island and once again postponing Cubans’ dreams of prosperity and democratic aspirations.

And some benefit will most likely be obtained by the EU, even if it is only the sad consolation of one day collecting the debt payments which, thanks to the generosity of their banks and their businessmen, keep them tied to the Island’s chiefdom clique, which in turn is unduly engaged in not arousing their suspicions. I am afraid that on this point too, as with regard to its brand-new Dialogue Agreement, the EU will end up with yet another failure.

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Are We Facing A New Black Spring In Cuba?

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara will be tried for insult against the national symbols for trying to take away from the Government its monopoly on the Cuban the. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Generation Y, Havana, 11 March 2020 — Seventeen years ago, while the world was focused on watching the invasion of Iraq, the Cuban regime took advantage of the distraction to strike the repressive coup that came to be called the Black Spring. This March, as the international media dedicates its headlines to the coronavirus, the Plaza of the Revolution is tightening the screws of control. The most visible face of these new raids is the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, who has been imprisoned since Sunday March 1st for two alleged crimes, one of insult against the national symbols and the other of property damage.

Otero Alcántara creates a type of irreverent and social art that annoys the officialdom. The protest for the elimination of the bust of a communist leader to inaugurate a luxurious hotel in its place, also recalls in one of its installations the cache of weapons that Havana tried to pass through the Panama Canal bound for North Korea. A resident of San Isidro, one of the poorest areas of the Cuban capital, this artist born in 1987 has become the stone in the shoe of the stagnant Cuban Government.

The discomfort caused by Otero Alcántara among the island’s nomenklatura has several causes. He comes from a poor family, is mixed race and was born within the Revolutionary process. The authorities find it disturbing that, after having received a ‘free education and healthcare,’ as the official propaganda wearily repeats, he chooses not to applaud but to question. continue reading

To make matters worse, with his art he disassembles and desacralizes power by speaking to them on familiar and personal terms. They also reject his universal gaze, his successful use of new technologies, which have helped him to disseminate his actions, and his social commitment that places him in the uncomfortable category of artivist.

However, what Castroism is particularly bothered by is the crosscutting nature of Otero Alcántara, who has successfully included in his works the LGBTI agenda, the defense of animals, urban music, alternative literature, dissident postulates, the relationship between Cuba and the United States, the pains of exile, the rescue — beyond ideology — of national symbols, and criticism of Fidel Castro’s personal excesses. Irony, sarcasm and questioning mark his work with a freshness and spontaneity that many of those other creators – the ‘official’ ones from the gallery and catalog – have given up, preferring not to inconvenience power but rather to dedicate themselves to selling their art without getting into trouble.

For using the Cuban flag in several of his installations and performances, Otero Alcántara will be tried in a context in which police citations against activists are increasing, are arbitrary arrests and the violation of independent journalists’ freedom of movement. Probably in its heated offices the Communist Party is planning to make this trial an exemplary action that will permeate the whole of society, spurred on by the shortages, the inefficiency of the system and the dysfunctionality of the institutions. In response to the lack of bread, fear.

As in March 2003, the Cuban regime hopes to take advantage of global distraction to deal a further blow to citizen liberties. The Black Spring returns, but it remains to be seen how we are going to react to it now.

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This text was originally published by Deustche Welle’s Latin America page.

Five Young People on the Island Win Awards in Cuban Contest for “Influencers”

The five winners will receive workshops from specialists in Digital Marketing, trips abroad, as well as recharges to their cell phones for the use of mobile data. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 6 March 2020 — A contest that seeks to support Cubans who want to become new stars of social networks already has its winners. The contest, launched by the presenter Alex Otaola, announced on Thursday the names of five young people from the Island who have received this support to be influencers.

After counting the votes of the public plus those of an “analysis panel” made up of “experts in influencer marketing, social networks, human rights and statistics,” it was determined that the winners are: Emma López (Category: Powerful Cubanas), Yander Serra (Category: Life in My Neighborhood), Dasiel González (Category: LGBTIQ), Ruhama Fernández (Category: Future Society, Dreams for Cuba), Jorge Záceta (Category: Environment and Animal Rights), explains the opinion competition.

After hearing she won, Ruhana Fernández, one of the winners, used her Twitter account to thank everyone who pushed her on the networks during the vote. “It is indescribable how my life has changed.” continue reading

“After several months, three eliminations and failed attempts with the final marred by votes of false profiles, catfishing and improper actions that tried to discredit this event, still fighting against wind and tide, from the precarious access to the Internet from the island of Cuba, these five young people who were selected by the Red Cuban Power team will be the five new faces of the Cuban internet,” Otaola emphasized.

The experts evaluated the quality of the videos, the size of the audiences achieved and the level of engagement of the competitors in their social media profiles. For example, Yander Serra achieved more than 16,000 views in the video he submited for the third elimination. While Ruhama Fernández generated 9,600.

Family, how much they have helped me, a thousand thanks for taking me here. It is indescribable how it has changed my life. @alexotaola @anaolema @ilianahcuba @rocamadur @Liusantiesteban @ linareslaura301 @ mariaro91986369 there are many others missing but a thousand thanks for fighting for freedom pic.twitter.com/0Zl0zJMAWW

– Ruhama (@ ruhsantiago99) March 6, 2020

The call for the contest was answered by more than 50 interested parties from the Island’s different provinces with an age range that ranged from 18 to 40 years. The Red Cuban Power Facebook page, where the competition was announced, has more than 2,700 followers and received more than 34,600 interactions in the last month.

The five winners will receive workshops by specialists in Digital Marketing, trips abroad, special equipment for content generation and also recharges for their cell phones for the use of mobile data.

The winners will also be interviewed throughout the following week by Alex Otaola on their show.

The contest seeks to open new channels of expression and opinion to new generations and to the voices of young people living in Cuba so that they can freely express and share their ideas, share their experiences and promote social change.

In the last year, and after web browsing service for mobilephones came to Cuba, the number and reach of influencers who publish content from the Island has been enhanced. With topics ranging from soccer, to daily life and even fashion, these young people publish fresh, creative and original content that is frequently distant from political issues.

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The 26th Street Clinic Will be Dedicated to Coronavirus Sufferers in Havana

The Pedro Kourí hospital will care for the sickest. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 9 March 2020 — The Joaquín Albarrán Clinical Surgical Teaching Hospital, popularly known as “Clinic 26,” is preparing to become a center dedicated to coronavirus sufferers in Havana as a priority, as several employees have confirmed to 14ymedio.

Although the authorities insist that there are still no cases of Covid-19 on the Island, the official press indicates that “the institutions that will be prepared for the timely isolation of suspicious or positive cases have been designated, with more than 2,400 beds across the country.” The headquarters will be at the Pedro Kourí Institute (IPK), where 160 beds have been enabled for these purposes, “of which 20 are especially for pregnant women and children.”

According to testimonies collected by 14ymedio from the staff, Clinic 26 will be the first host center and from there, cases that are more complicated and serious will be sent to the IPK, especially the elderly and chronically ill, as well as pregnant women. continue reading

“They have given us special training and measures are being taken so that the entire hospital functions as the main reception center for patients with coronavirus,” explains one of the clinic’s doctors, who has been in the team for more than a week to assess how she is going to operate the Emergency Room and the admission rooms once the first confirmed cases begin to arrive.

“We have several problems to solve but we are working on that,” explains the health professional. “One of the most complicated is that of the building’s five elevators, only one is working; we use that one elevator to move patients, corpses and surgical waste,” she laments. “If we start receiving patients with coronavirus that situation cannot continue.”

The Clinic on 26th Street has been the main center of attention for dengue patients in Havana, although the volume of infected people led to the use of hospital rooms throughout the city. “There were days last year when we received up to 25 people a day with suspicion of dengue and now the numbers have gone down, but they keep coming. We are at an average of 50 per month.”

“But one thing is the attention to patients with dengue fever, a disease that is transmitted with the bite of a mosquito, and another attention to a coronavirus that is spread by contact and drops of saliva. The level of isolation and hygiene that we have to achieve must be very high,” explains the doctor. “The risk is multiplied for all medical personnel who will have to undergo very strict protocols and measures.”

A nurse from the same hospital confirms the fear that is spreading among workers. “We have problems with the water supply, in many admitting rooms the bathrooms work poorly and we are facing a disease that requires constant washing of hands and maintaining the cleanliness of the body and spaces,” she explains.

“They say that when the first infected people arrive we will already have gloves to constantly change them ourselves and also more clothes and masks, but right now all that material has not yet arrived,” she laments. “Every day they give me between two and three pairs of gloves to wear and I have to wash them to take care of all the patients that come to me.”

“We will work in coordination with the police as well, because the patients who arrive will be under the obligation of not leaving this center,” says the nurse. “Criminal punishments can be applied if they do not comply with mandatory isolation.”

The Cuban health authorities insist that no case of Covid-19 has been detected on the Island and the official press announces that a training process for health professionals in the country is being carried out to address the coronavirus.

The official press has spent several days offering special information about the virus and how the Island is prepared for its arrival and this Monday at 6 pm President Miguel Díaz-Canel, Prime Minister Manuel Marrero Cruz, and the Minister of Health Public, José Ángel Portal Miranda will be on the Roundtable television program, which is reporting the seriousness of the situation.

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The Shortage of Beer Harms Small Businesses in Havana

In the state stores the national beer has a price of 1 CUC but in the last weeks the national production is barely seen on the shelves. (Brando / Flickr)

14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, 3 March 2020 — “The owner went out from this morning to try to get beer and has not returned,” explains the employee of a small restaurant on Tulipán Street, in Havana, to a customer who has come eagerly hoping for a Buccaneer or a Crystal.

“There is no store in this neighborhood,” adds the woman. Nor in the rest of the capital, where the shortage of beer hasn’t affected private businesses again this week, especially coffee shops and restaurants that include in their menus alcoholic beverages of national production or imported. National beers are only found in a few markets, which limit the sale to small quantities for each customer.

In the state stores the national beer has a price of 1 CUC but in the last weeks the national production is barely seen on the shelves. What’s available are brands from Mexico, Panama, Europe and some other distant places on the planet at higher prices. continue reading

“More than a week goes by and there’s no beer,” he administrator of a Caribbean chain store located in the central street Reina told 14ymedio. “It is one of the products that is most in demand, so when supplies do not arrive it affects us,” he says. “This is an area with many private businesses that are currently affected by this situation.”

According to the Cuban Statistical Yearbook of 2018, that year the beer production grew discreetly on the Island to reach about 67 million gallons, but the demand seems to have increased even more from the new flexibilities that allowed people to work for themselves.

Throughout 2019 the shortage of the product became a constant and for the Christmas holidays it became a real headache to try to buy beer. In most stores, each customer was limited to between six and ten units, but that did not prevent crowds and fights to buy it.

In November, beer was one of the products that motivated the avalanche of customers that practically assaulted the Plaza de Cuatro Caminos. At that time beer was one of the products going through a shortage crisis in the capital, a situation repeated this March.

Josué, a young musician who entertains evenings in a small state bar in Old Havana, has been out of work for several days because “there is no beer and that scares away the customers.” In the area near the cathedral “only the most important hotels and restaurants” now have the product and, in most cases, foreign brands,” he explains.

Some entrepreneurs point to capped prices as part of the causes of the current shortages. “They regulated prices but did not increase production and this is the result,” laments the owner of La Casita, a private cafe that offers pizzas, hamburgers and snacks in the municipality of Playa. “We had to remove beer from the menu because we cannot guarantee its availability.”

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The Whispers That Come

Silvio Rodríguez participated in the repudiation rally that was carried out against his fellow troubadour Mike Porcel in the turbulent days of the Mariel Boatlift in 1980. (Screen Capture)

14ymedio, Reinaldo Escobar, 7 March 2020 — Following the censorship of the documentary Sueños al Pairo (Dreams Adrift), which was removed from the programming of the Young Filmmakers Exhibition, the fact that singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez had participated in the repudiation rally that was perpetrated against his fellow troubadour Mike Porcel in the convulsive days of the Mariel Boatlift in 1980.

It was not necessary for the Revolution to collapse in order for the icon to fall to pieces. It was enough for the fool to reveal that he failed to define himself by hiding the body. It was enough for him to confess that he wasn’t able to understand, then, that they were inviting him to such shit.

To clear himself of guilt without going through the humiliating (for him) apology, he has simply explained that all he did was whisper something in front of his victim’s door. The same door that others tried to knock down. continue reading

Forty years later, the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara sits in jail awaiting a trial in which he can be sentenced from two to five years in prison for an alleged crime of property damage and for insulting national symbols.

With few, and honorable, exceptions, the plastic artists have kept an unfortunate silence, although they know perfectly well that the accusations are only a way of hiding the artist’s rebellion against the abuses of power, substantiated in decree 349. A vice minister has had the cynicism to clarify that Luisma, as his friends call Luis Manuel, is not being prosecuted for defying the unfortunate decree, but for other contraventions.

In a very short time some individuals will decide if the artist had the right to run down the street draped in the flag of his country, or if he should pay such audacity with the jail.

They are people who have names and surnames, mothers, children, friends. They probably even have religious beliefs and will find themselves in the dilemma of choosing between fearing the earthly consequences more than the divine ones. They will worry more about what happens this week or this month than what a future without a foreseeable date can hold.

This time it will not be necessary to spend another forty years to unveil the crime, nor will it be possible to mask with a whisper the sentence issued by the executioners. The volume of the voice, no matter how low, does not reduce the weight of the sentence, or the fault of those who unfairly impose it.

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Kcho and Other "Official" Artists Call for the Liberation of Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara

This Sunday a group of people meet to decide how to support Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 9 March 2020 — The movement for the liberation of the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is growing every day and now includes ’official’ artist such as Alexis Leyva, Kcho, and Silvio Rodríguez. “Let’s stop this now, we don’t need it and Cuba’s future is not censorship,” Kcho writes in a comment posted on Facebook.

At least three people were arrested while protesting in downtown Havana: The reporters Camila Acosta and Abu Dujanah, along with art historian Omara Ruiz Urquiola, who were arrested at the corner of 23rd and 12th, in Havana’s Vedado neighborhood.

In a video, shared by the Cubanet portal on its Twitter account, it appears that a group of people respond to the protest with shouts, insults and revolutionary slogans. continue reading

The “summary trial” of Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara will be held this week, according to a statement denounced by members of the San Isidro Movement of which the artist is a member. The first of the oral hearings relates to “the insult to the national symbols, and will be held on Wednesday, March 11 at 9 am in the Municipal Court of 10 de Octubre, at Carmen and Juan Delgado, in the Víbora neighborhood.”

Several activists and independent journalists have been subjected to a police siege on Monday to prevent them from leaving their homes. Among those affected is the 14ymedio reporter, Luz Escobar.

The declaration of Cuban intellectuals, and other nationalities that, from the Avaaz platform gathers support and solidarity with Luis Manuel Otero, has already collected more than 2,700 signatures.

Several artists resident on the Island joined in to demand the release of Otero Alcántara with texts of solidarity in social networks, including singer-songwriter Silvio Rodríguez who, in a comment on his blog Segunda Cita said: “The country has enough problems with its destructive enemies and other internal ones, and its malfunctioning, for there to be a scandal about freedoms every five minutes.”

“There has to be another more sensible and intelligent way to deal with these issues that are obviously being addressed. There is no week in which there is not a show like this. It is a constant mockery. And it is shameful. I those who promote these policies in prison. They are discrediting the country,” he added.

Rodriguez believes that art “or at least a conception of it with many followers” must be “a provocation.”

“Why don’t we learn?” he says. “Why do we continue with those mediocrities that are from other times and countries? We are presenting a very sad impression of backwardness, of the Middle Ages. It’s not for Cuba to be like that, a country where in the mid-twentieth century wonderful art schools were built.

“How in the 21st century are we going to put young artists into ideological retreats?” he wonders. “I think we have to stop that clearly and vigorously. Because this kind of repeated attitude is a serious political problem.”

Another supporter, most anticipated in this case, was that of singer Haydée Milanés. “I ask for his immediate liberation and that with this gesture our country can take an important step towards respect and debate among Cubans,” the singer demanded in social networks.

A few hours earlier, singer-songwriter Pedro Luis Ferrer also referred to the artist’s imprisonment. “In the midst of an environment rarefied by laws and decrees that concern us and dismay everyone (not only those who are described as “dissidents”), intransigence is once again highly harmful to the spiritual health of our society. Clemency denotes energy; oppression does not. ”

“With all the respect that this shameful situation demands, I ask that the sensible request be met and that those who should never have been imprisoned be released, since everything that is alleged against them is highly debatable. The problems of the spirituality of a people can’t be resolved with the police. When will we learn?”

Art critic Orlando Hernández also joined in solidarity. “I am against this arrest, this trial and the entire hoax that has been armed against that artist, and I respect and admire his courage. I think his is a necessary work, especially since he questions and denounces the repression against freedom of thought, of word, of creation.”

“I am against his being imprisoned for defending with his skin what we all want and need, true freedom, which is not only to move our wings inside the cage, but to fly wherever anyone wants.”

The National Plastic Arts Prize winner René Francisco, wrote that if Luis Manuel Otero is not an artist, “it is an invalidation of the teachings received in the official art history programs at the ENA and the ISA that established performance art and artistic activism in our discernment (…) an endless list of artists whose body, energy and thought have tried to break the inertia and risk their privacy outdoors in the persistent search for their emancipation.”

He also expressed his disagreement with the artist’s imprisonment and added that “he would long for the forces and sanity” of cultural institutions “to accentuate common sense and stop this alarming process.”

“Enough of putting artists in jail for fun,” Cuban reggaeton Yosvanis Sierra Hernández, known as Chocolate, wrote on his Instagram account, along with a photo of the artist and the hashtag #LibertadParaLuisma (Freedom for Luisma — (Luis Manuel)).

Last week a group of intellectuals, both Cuban and of other nationalities, signed a letter in support of the artist and denounced that “he has been the victim of a campaign of defamation and harassment orchestrated by the Cuban Government as part of its implementation of Decree 349.”

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is facing a penalty of two to five years in prison for the crimes for which he is being investigated: insult the national symbols and damage to property. According to activist Michel Matos, also a producer of the San Isidro Movement, the artist was transferred to the Valle Grande prison last Wednesday as a “precautionary measure.”

The authorities arrested Otero Alcantara on the afternoon of March 1 to prevent him from attending the LGTBIQ ’kiss-in’ before the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television, a protest against the censorship of a scene from the movie Love, Simon in which two men kissed.

The San Isidro Movement also “launched a call from its Facebook platform, under the anonymous profile Free Luisma” for a public protest on Monday. The group thanked all the initiatives to support the release of Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, but explains that the “current strategy” focuses on the legal defense of the artist.

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‘Spring Arrived and its Black Flowers Opened’

Gorki Águila, leader of the band Porno para Ricardo, said he received a citation on Friday to attend an interrogation. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, 8 March 2020 — The musician Gorki Águila received a fine of 2,000 pesos on Friday along with the threat of the fine being repeated whenever he posts criticism against government leaders on Facebook, such as mentioning the Cambio de Bola (Ball Change) program of Estado de Sats (State of Sats), a discussion group.

“For each Cambio de Bola, a 2,000 pesos fine,” he was told in reference to that space he shares with Claudio Fuentes and Antonio Rodiles.

Águila, leader of the band Porno para Ricardo, said he received a citation on Friday to attend an interrogation at a police station and was forced to undress before entering. continue reading

“Very afraid of a camera or some device that recorded their rights-violating threats, they stripped me looking for devices and even took my the glasses,” said the musician.

According to his testimony, the officers spoke to him in a threatening tone: “impunity is over for you” and “enough with the talking trash about the leaders of this country,” they said. They also warned him that they could prohibit him from leaving the country, a measure that the authorities use arbitrarily and more and more frequently against anti-establishment artists, independent journalists, opponents and human rights activists.

“I don’t know if the 2,000 pesos of fine are for ’trash talking’ about the tyrants of this country for allegedly spreading undue ’enemy’ propaganda or for the crime of using Facebook live. Communism is a paranormal phenomenon,” said Gorki Águila.

He summarized his concern with an allusion to the repression of April 2003 — which came to be called “the Black Spring” — when 75 opponents and independent journalists were arrested and sentenced to long sentences: “Spring came and its black flowers opened.”

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‘Tremenda Nota’ Journalist Who Obtained Asylum in US Freed

Yariel Valdés González, 29, was in the River Correctional Center awaiting an appeal presented by ICE against the decision by judge Timothy Cole that granted him asylum. (Facebook)

14ymedio, Havana, March 5, 2020 — Five months after obtaining political asylum in the US, independent journalist and Tremenda Nota contributor, Yariel Valdés González, was released from the detention center in New Orleans in which Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) was holding him until the resolution of an appeal.

“After 11 months I was finally able to set foot in the land of liberty. It has been a long journey, painful, stressful, sometimes disappointing, but definitely worth it. Only one night out from behind bars has been necessary to prove that better things are coming for me,” Valdés wrote last night.

The reporter, 29, was in the River Correctional Center awaiting an appeal presented by ICE against the decision by judge Timothy Cole that granted him asylum last September, according to the Washington Blade, a media outlet managed by the LGBT community and to which he also contributes. The Immigration Appeal Board, supervised by the Justice Department, rejected the appeal on February 28. continue reading

Valdés and his colleague Carlos Alejandro Rodríguez Martínez, editor of Tremenda Nota, had been detained in September of 2017 when they were trying to interview an official of the Communist Party of Cuba in the Villa Clara province about the preparations for hurricane Irma.

The reporter arrived in the US on March 27, 2019 and turned himself in to ICE officials at the Calexico Bridge in California, where he requested asylum, claiming he had suffered persecution in Cuba for his work as an independent journalist.

“I can begin my life again in this country,” the reporter told the Washington Blade.

“I hope to be able to continue my career as a journalist from here and continue the fight for a more democratic Cuba for the 11 million Cubans who have resisted and resisted this dictatorial regime that has been in power for six decades,” he added.

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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The Cuban ’Chavito’ Smells of Death

Many private taxi drivers have chosen to accept only Cuban pesos (CUPs) as payment for their services. (Frans Persoon)

14ymedio, Marcelo Hernández, Havana, 6 March 2020 — “It’s 985 pesos,” the employee says when she brings the bill for a lunch for three people in a state restaurant in the municipality of Playa, in Havana. It exceeds the monthly salary of one of the customers, an engineer, who does not like the payment in CUP (Cuban pesos). “It is now more obvious than ever that prices have nothing to do with wages,” he complains.

Last week the Ministry of Internal Trade announced that the food services under state management can only use one currency, the CUP. Products that were previously sold in Cuban convertible pesos (CUC) such as beers, soft drinks, cigars, water, ice cream, jams and other alcoholic beverages, have been priced in Cuban pesos.

The measure has triggered uncertainty about the possible short-term disappearance of the CUC, which has been losing ground since the authorities warned that the survivor of monetary unification was going to be the Cuban peso. continue reading

Since 1994 two currencies have coexisted and people have become accustomed to alternating between the devalued Cuban peso (CUP), which the state uses to pay salaries and people use to buy basic products and services; and the convertible peso (CUC), comparable to the dollar.

During the Government of Raúl Castro, from 2008 to 2018, there was much talk about monetary unification and that it would be done gradually, but to date the schedule or the moment of completion of the process has not been revealed, much less what the exchange rate will be.

“We are still getting used to this new situation,” acknowledges an employee of a small state-owned store that strives to apply the new directives that, since last week, prohibit her from charging customers in CUCs. In the business, located next to the Habana Libre hotel, food combos with pork, rice and some vegetable are sold, as well as alcoholic drinks and soft drinks. “The simple fact of calculating the income at the end of the day is already a problem because the numbers [in CUPs] are larger and errors can increase, especially when you have been working in CUCs for so many years.”

“The Cuban peso is easier to counterfeit because the paper used for many denominations is of worse quality, so we must keep our eyes peeled because people have already tried to pass some bills that were not authentic,” she adds. “Now I get a chill when I have to give a user a bill in Cuban pesos and the amount is greater than what I earn a whole month working here; before I didn’t realize it so much,” said the worker.

At a table, an Italian tourist talks with two young Cubans. They have each ordered a plate of fried pork dough, accompanied by a Belgian beer which is the only one available these days due to poor national production. Vicenzo, who lives in Milan, says that every year he comes to Cuba once or twice and that managing in CUPs bothers him.

“If before I had to change my euros into CUCs, now I also have to, then, change my CUCs into CUPs because there are services — like Panataxis — that remain exclusively in convertible pesos, while to eat or drink I need the Cuban currency [CUPs], and I’m confused the whole time… I have to go out and exchange money because I don’t have enough [in CUPs],” Vincenzo laments, when the bill arrives for 412 CUP.

The employee comments to 14ymedio that the scene is repeated almost every day. “There are people who do not know, they come, they eat and drink, and then they do not have the correct currency to pay.” A few meters away, a clever black market entrepreneur has found his niche in that difficulty. “I change 1 to 22 right now without having to an exchange kiosk,” he offers, instead of the 24 pesos of the official CUC exchange rate.

From this month the premises that provide food services under state management will now carry out all their commercial actions in CUP. (Martin Abegglen)

“Although the ’chavitos’* cannot be used here , they are still the strong currency in stores and other services, so it is convenient for me to have them,” explains the money changer. “Most of the people who accept this change are tourists, Cuban-Americans or people who don’t want to have to interrupt a lunch or a meal to change money to pay the bill.”

While the state sector is obliged to respect the new measure, in private businesses they are more flexible. “It doesn’t matter if you pay in euros, dollars, convertible pesos or Japanese yen,” says Eduardo Rodríguez, the driver of a private car that makes frequent trips from Havana to Varadero or to the Viñales tourist area. “As long as it is money there is no problem.”

However, drivers of collective taxis that run on fixed routes within the city prefer to be more cautious. “I do not accept the chavito,” warns the self-employed worker at the helm of an old patched-up Cadillac that carries passengers between the Capitol and the town of Marianao.

The authorities have warned that after the monetary unification only the Cuban peso or national currency will be maintained. (Josef Willems)

“I can’t risk ending up with too many convertible pesos and then they suddenly unify the currency and only allow each person to exchange a small amount ,” he explains. “The same day they announced that the state cafeterias and restaurants were only going to accept CUPs, I decided to do the same inside my car, because that is a sign that cannot be ignored.”

However, after the initial announcement, the Deputy Minister of the Ministry of Internal Trade, Miriam Pérez, warned that sales in convertible pesos in the establishments of the state system of commerce and food services, are not related to monetary unification but are intended to create “greater control” in that commercial network. Some statements that have failed to placate the suspicions around the chavito.

“Sure, what would they say? If they publicly announce that this currency is already a corpse, nobody will want to have it in their pocket,” says Eduardo Rodríguez. “It is a danger to be saving money in chavitos because any day we could wake up with the news that they are useless, although my children and grandchildren were born with this currency and for them they were the bills that were really worth something because the other [CUPs] weren’t good for much.”

“It is not the same to say that a pizza is worth 3.50 CUCs when you put in front of the customer and then when he gets the bill he owes almost 90 CUP,” explains Wilfredo, a waiter in a state-run restaurant in Playa specializing in Italian food. “The number in Cuban pesos impresses anyone.”

*Translator’s note: “Chavito” is a slang term for a Cuban convertible peso, of disputed origin, but it is said to be a play on the name of the former Venezuelan president, Hugo Chavez.

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The Invasion That Won’t Come

Nicolás Maduro dressed as a soldier during a Government ceremony in Caracas. (EFE)

14ymedio, Carlos Blanco, Caracas, March 4, 2020 — There are fewer people hoping for an invasion to free Venezuela than those making fun of those supposedly waiting for it. These days, electioneering has changed the dishonest dilemma of “either we understand each other or we kill each other” for that of the no less ominous “elections or death,” until it could be “elections or Maduro forever.”

The logic that sustains the electoral illusion insists that nobody is coming to free Venezuela from outside and, given those circumstances, there only remains the domestic effort and, since citizens lack arms and military support, the only thing to do is go to the ballot boxes. Just as the accommodating wise men used to say, “Take what you can get.”

What’s certain is that there is not nor will there be an invasion unless the madness of the red leadership carries out open military actions abroad. This will not happen because the heads of the criminal organization have decided to dress up their external incursions with surreptitious funding for destabilizing groups and the always generous help for ELN, the FARC dissidents, the colectivos, and other gangs. continue reading

There will be no invasion because the United States is not in any political condition to do it and because the democratic forces of the country are not asking for it, among other things, because turning Venezuela into a space of prolonged foreign military occupation doesn’t interest or suit anybody.

If this is true, where will the internal forces for change come from? What role will the countries that support the removal of the regime and the restoration of democracy play?

I think that the internal forces can emerge from the progressive alignment of political and institutional factors that have differed in the past, but that now assume the goal of the replacement of the regime and understand that the electoral option with “the end of the usurpation” will lead to the continuation of the fraud.

The countries that reject the regime also differ from one another: those who try for elections of any type “with conditions” (which the regime will never give) and those who believe that it’s necessary to replace it with arm twisting. The first led by Europe and the second by the United States, Colombia, and Brazil mainly.

The convergence of the national coalition with the international coalition, between those trying for a regime change from within and without, is the key to building an irresistible pressure that will force supporters of the regime to crumble even more. One day there will rise those who will remove their little heads from the rotten environment full of flies and filth to say: Nicolás, let’s go, everyone hates us here.

There will not be a prolonged war a la Mao Zedong, but rather something I imagine similar to January 23, 1958 or April 11, 2002, when the generals, inspired, pressured, or frightened by the force of the people, said to the tyrant: “Either you run or you join us,” and, in the examples mentioned, Pérez Jiménez and Chávez ran…

Translated by: Sheilagh Herrera

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Editors’ note: This text was previously published by the Venezuelan newspaper El Nacional. We reproduce it here with permission.

The Strategy Against Otero Alcantara Seeks to Foster Terror, According to Letter Signatories

Otero Alcantara has been the victim of a campaign of defamation and harassment orchestrated by the Cuban government, the signatories say. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Havana, 5 March 2020 — A group of artists, art and literature professionals, editors, journalists and intellectuals from Cuba and other nations signed a letter this week in support of the artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, who as of Wednesday had been detained for 72 hours. The summary trial will be held in less than ten days as revealed by members of the San Isidro collective to which the artist belongs.

“We want to clarify that Otero Alcantara has been the victim of a campaign of defamation and harassment orchestrated by the Cuban Government as part of its implementation of Decree 349,” reads the text.

The letter, which seeks to gather many more signatures through an online petition on the Avaaz.org platform, was released this Wednesday and has already been signed by artists such as Tania Bruguera, Coco Fusco, Heidi Hassan, Carlos Lechuga, Reynier Leyva Novo, Carlos Quintela, Magela Garcés or the art curator Solveig Font Martinez. Among the journalists who have supported the Otero Alcantara are, among others, Carlos Manuel Álvarez, Mónica Baró and Luz Escobar. continue reading

Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is facing a penalty of two to five years in prison for the crimes for which he is being investigated: outrage toward the national symbols and damage to property. According to activist Michel Matos, also a member of the San Isidro Movement, the artist was transferred to the Valle Grande prison on Wednesday “under a precautionary measure.”

The letter denounces that Otero Alcántara has suffered “multiple forced disappearances and detentions without judicial supervision that are human rights violations” and the accusation of “property abuse,” has the purpose of allowing the artist to be treated “as a common criminal.”

The Movement refuses to participate in any attempt by the State to “persecute and defame Otero Alcántara for the sole fact of being an artist and claiming his rights,” since they believe that after his arrest there has been a strategy that fosters “terror within the artistic environment and civil society, in order to win the complicity and silence of Cuban artists.”

“We refuse to cooperate with police and judicial repression. We refuse to testify against Otero Alcantara as a person, as a citizen of civic conscience or as an artist. The persecution of Otero Alcantara affects us all as artists, as Cubans and as human beings who love freedom and who respect their colleagues. Free Luisma*!” they conclude.

The authorities arrested Otero Alcantara last Sunday afternoon to prevent him from attending the LGTBIQ ’kissing call’ protest before the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television for the censorship of a scene from the movie Love, Simon in which two men kissed.

During the arrest, curator Claudia Genlui was beaten by a police and thrown to the ground on the public street, according to testimony. She clarified to the agents that, with Otero Alcantara, they were going out to get food because the protest call had been canceled, but their explanation was not heard. In addition, her cell phone was searched without documentation or an authorization for the search.

*LuisMa(nuel)

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Cuban Television Apologizes for the Censorship of a Gay Kiss

The censorship of the scene unleashed many messages of denunciation in social networks. (Capture)

14ymedio, Havana, 1 March 2020 — This Sunday the web portal of Cuban Television, belonging to the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT), apologized to viewers after censoring a scene from the film Love, Simon in which two men kissed.

“Cuban TV offers an apology to the television audience for the mutilation of the scene of the film Love, Simon in the space Pensando en 3D (Thinking 3D) on Saturday, February 29, where the protagonists, two young homosexuals, kissed,” says the note, in an unusual gesture from the official media.

The text also says that “in the face of this error” an analysis of what happened will be carried out because the omission “does not reflect homophobic positions of the ICRT and its directors of the TVC, as some have suggested in social networks.” continue reading

They also said that the film will be broadcast “in its entirety” on the same program and that it will be announced “in due course.”

“The inclusive vision of Cuban society pushes daily against cultural stereotypes. It is everyone’s duty to walk on the side of the righteous and move forward as the country that constitutionally recognizes ’the culture of Cubans to the full dignity of man,’” they conclude.

The censorship of the scene unleashed many messages of denunciation in social networks and part of the LGBTI community launched a call for a “kissing protest” in front of the ICRT building this Sunday at one in the afternoon. Several activists denounced State Security pressures after the announcement.

LGBTI activist Isbel Díaz reported on her Facebook page the arbitrary detention of Jancel Morero, a member of that community. “Our colleague and activist Jancel Moreno has been detained by State Security when he was trying to reach the Cuban Radio and Television Institute, and they have taken him to a place far away to prevent him from arriving at the protest.”

To Díaz, the apologies of the institution “once again show” that the Cuban LGBTI community is strong.

“We have on LGBTIQ community in Cuba. And our strength is in the streets, and in the courage of people like Jancel Moreno, about whom we still don’t have information. What they did on TV was not a mistake. Editing a film requires a thousand permits. It is an expression of the system, which after the reactions in social networks, hurries to put a patch on it,” she wrote.

“But that system always has time to intimidate, to violate, to infringe on people’s rights. Censorship on Cuban TV is consistent with the decision to put equal marriage to a referendum. It is all part of the same thing. The strength of 11,000 is more than justified. And we still have a way to go,” denounced Díaz.

Díaz was referring to May 11, 2019 when State Security agents clashed with LGBTI community activists and supporters of this group who went to Havana Central Park to demonstrate in favor of diversity on the Island. At least seven people were violently arrested on that occasion.

Jancel Moreno managed to send a message on Sunday after his arrest in which he claimed that he had been taken to a place he did not know but was far from home.

Art curator Claudia Genlui Hidaldo reported live on Facebook that State Security violently arrested artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara. She also said that she was beaten by a police officer at the moment they both left the house on San Isidro Street, in order to take her cell phone.

“I have been beaten by the police. They took my phone because I was filming what was happening to Luis Manuel and a police officer beat me and threw me in the street,” she said, still upset and nervous.

Both she and Otero Alcántara had denounced that since the morning their home had been under siege with several surveillance points to prevent them from reaching 23rd and M Streets.

Although the kiss protest was canceled, a dozen activists mobilized and arrived at the entrance of the ICRT with flags of the LGBTI community.

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