14ymedio – Page 446 – Translating Cuba

Different Women, The Same Inequality

Regardless of their social origin, women face the same inequality in Cuba. (Luis Montemayor)

14ymedio, Zunilda Mata, Havana, 8 March 2018 — Lucy and Maité represent two different faces of the same society. One is a worker in a private business and the other is a prostitute. Both work in the coastal town of Guanabo, east of Havana. This Thursday neither of them will join the international call for strikes convened for this March 8, although each suffers the consequences of gender inequality.

Maité was born in Esmeralda, Camagüey, shortly after the island was opened to international tourism and the dollar. As a child she dreamed of being an actress, but when she decided to move to the Cuban capital she encountered a problem. “I had to get married to get residency,” she tells 14ymedio.

Maité was blackmailed by the man who she agreed to a enter into a marriage of convenience with, and he threatened to divorce her and denounce her for illegally residing in the city if she did not sleep with him. She was just 20 years old.

“That’s how I started in this world,” she says now, wearing in a tiny skirt as she sits in a cafeteria in Guanabo where she meets her clients, most of them Italians, Canadians or Spaniards.

A few yards from where she is sitting, two policemen patrol the streets of the tourist area. Although prostitution in Cuba is not prohibited, women are often prosecuted for crimes such as “pre-criminal dangerousness” and “harassment of tourists,” and then confined to work farms to be “reformed.”

On the work farms, sex workers must work in agriculture for between one and two years, but they also receive therapy sessions and courses with the idea of distancing them from prostitution, an objective that often is not achieved.

Maité was already in one of those “open-air prisons,” as she calls them. After that she sought the “help” of a pimp. “The girls who are in this and do not have a man to defend them have a very bad time,” she says. The pimp charges her a part of her earnings and “keeps the police in line.”

The young women who work in the area, most of them arriving from other provinces, are not organized through associations and the trade union movement is controlled by the Government. “Here, no sooner does someone think of making a group or forming an organization, than they pull them off street,” says Maité.

To Maité and her colleagues staging a strike seems to be “playing with fire” although they have a long list of demands. “When I go to file a complaint at a police station, at the very least they make fun of me or threaten to put me in the dungeon for a few days.”

The government also does not include prostitution among the work activities eligible for one of the the private work licenses authorized over the last decades. “I am like a cuentapropista (a self-employed person) but without permission, without a union and without the right to one day have a pension,” Maité complains.

A few yards away, also on Guanabo’s main street, Lucy works as an employee of a snack bar selling pizzas and snacks where, during the summer, long lines form, fed by the arrival of thousands of vacationers.

“I’ve been in this job for almost five years and it’s going well, although the days are hard.” For almost 10 hours Lucy stands behind a counter selling ham sandwiches, fruit smoothies and pizzas. “Sometimes when I get home I can’t even take off my shoes my feet are so swollen.”

This March 8, Lucy will not join the women’s strike. “I can’t, if I stop working they throw me out and private businesses have a line of people who want to work here,” she explains. The business owner is a man who has redone part of his home to operate as a snackbar.

In Cuba the private sector is currently 33% women, but at the head of businesses, female faces are not as visible. “Most women are not owners, but hired to provide services by those who have the capital, usually men,” says economist Teresa Lara.

The specialist also explains that “women perform care and food service activities.” Hairdressers, baby-care centers and food delivery are some of those occupations, but in the transportation of passengers or technical services their absence is striking.

“The owners of these businesses want good-looking women to serve the public,” confirms Lucy. The press has published several complaints of discrimination based on age, race or certain aesthetic parameters, but the practice continues and there are more and more demands.

“I have to wear this short skirt that I do not like very much, but the owner says that I sell more,” says Lucy. Curiously, Maité’s skirt also falls many inches above the knee. The tiny size of that piece of clothing, showing off a good part of their thighs, is common to both women.

The two women have something else in common. Both joined the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) at 14, the pro-government organization that includes most of the Cuban women. “I’m still ’federated’ to protect myself if I get caught a police raid,” confesses Maité. “I’m about to step down because it’s pure formality,” Lucy adds.

This March 8, the FMC has called on the ‘female trenches’ to support the Revolution and has honored its founder, Vilma Espín, who was Raúl Castro’s wife. The logo of the organization, on display everywhere this Thursday, is a woman dressed as a soldier with a rifle on her shoulder. Ready to “defend the homeland.”

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24 Hours Are Not The Life Of A Woman

For 24 hours everything will be done to stall women’s grievances. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 8 March 2018 — The grandmother was beaten by her spouse, the mother lost the sight of an eye from the fist of a drunken husband and she sometimes goes out in the street with sunglasses to hide the bruises. She is one more, among millions of Cuban women, of the many who have come to believe that in the “genetics lottery” they lost, carrying two X chromosomes.

This March 8, as a parenthesis in their routine, when these women go out in the street they will only find smiles. “Congratulations on Women’s Day” they will read on the mural at their workplace, the same place where the male bosses oversee the female employes and the only ones who manage the company’s vehicles are, coincidentally, men. continue reading

At mid afternoon they will stop working to share a piece of cake decorated with pink flowers and accompanied by croquettes, which they themselves have prepared the night before. A few words from the director, a man, will end with applause and will give way to the reading of the names of the “outstanding women workers.”

After the party, the honorees themselves will have to clear the table, clean the floor and take the dirty dishes home because “scrubbing is a woman’s thing.” They will watch the clock, but the date doesn’t matter. Today they also have to cook, pick up the children at school and clean.

This March 8, as a parenthesis in their routine, when these women go out to the street they will only find smiles

Down the street, the obscene stalker who, every day, launches some lascivious comment, for this day will have some corny compliment about how ugly “the world would be without women.” He will repeat his cynical words while leaning over a little to see if he can catch “a flash of thigh” under the skirts of the women passing by.

The sullen neighbor, who threw her daughter out of the house because she was pregnant before the age of 20, will be in charge of placing the sign inside the elevator greeting all the “federated and revolutionary women” living in the building.

The teenage girl, who is teased in her classroom because her mother “has had three husbands,” will read the statement at the party organized in a hallway of the apartment house. The daughter of the president of the Committee of the Revolution, who works as a prostitute to support her two children, will be in charge of hanging up balloons and handing out flowers.

The male official who lives on a high floor will talk about the Cuban women whose example should be imitated but will eliminate from the list all those the official discourse finds “uncomfortable.” The male resident who leads the surveillance operation against a dissident who lives nearby, will speak of “the delicacy” of women and “the respect they deserve.”

The owner of the private restaurant on the corner will give a flower to each female employee and tell her that today they have a 12-hour day because “there are a lot reservations for the celebration.” The woman who scrubs will get her rose in the kitchen so that she does not have to appear in the customer area of the premises, “because she does not have the necessary physical presence,” he explains.

At the premises of the neighborhood Federation of Cuban Women, a strongly perfumed female official will remember Fidel Castro, as the “leader who emancipated Cuban women”

When the restaurant opens to the public, the tables will be filled quickly and whenever someone asks for the bill, the male waiters will solicitously and smilingly hand it to the man at the table. “He is the one who has the money, of course,” says one of them, wearing a white shirt with a crooked black bow tie around his neck.

At the premises of the neighborhood Federation of Cuban Women, a strongly perfumed female official will remember Fidel Castro, as the “leader who emancipated Cuban women” and end her long tirade with a thunderous “Commander in Chief, at your orders!”

For 24 hours, everything will be designed to stall women’s grievances, to hide behind the celebrations the serious problems that run through society in terms of gender discrimination, lack of equity, sexual harassment and the disparity of economic opportunities between men and women.

The fanfare will extinguish the demands and the official events will try to mask the reality. While millions of women in the world take to the streets to demand their rights and many others join a work stoppage as a sign of dissatisfaction, this March 8, Cuban women will wear a gag composed of bouquets of flowers and cloying postcards.

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Activist and Blogger Agustin Lopez Charged with Crime of ‘Receiving’

14ymedio, Havana, 6 March 2018 — The activist and blogger Agustín López Canino has been charged with the crime of “receiving” after a police search of his home last Friday, where a personal computer, camera and other objects were seized. The opponent could face a sentence of up to one year in prison, according to the criminal code.

Last Friday, around seven o’clock in the morning, several members of the National Revolutionary Police and State Security agents went to the home of López Canino to search it, according to the activist speaking to 14ymedio. continue reading

“There were two police cars, three agents on their bikes and Lieutenant Colonel Kenya,” he details. “They assaulted my house and it was only after my things were on the table, the computer and other objects like disks, that they looked for two witnesses from the block.” Cuban law requires two civilian witnesses be present any time a home is searched.

López Canino states that “at no time” did the officers show him a search warrant, although current legislation establishes that the document must be shown before proceeding to search a home.

“They collected things from the trash, they took my laptop, a camera, a DVD burner and everything they could, even cables that did not work,” adds the editor of the independent publication El Gran Blondin.

At the end of the search, which lasted more than three hours, the activist was arrested and taken to the Santiago de las Vegas Police Station, where he was charged with the crime of “receiving.” After 72 hours he was released this Monday, after paying a bond of 3,000 CUP. The penal code considers that for “anyone who… exchanges or acquires goods” that come from a crime; the punishment specified is “deprivation of liberty from three months to one year or a fine of 100 to 300 shares* [CUP] or both.”

López Canino, born in 1955 in Santo Domingo, Villa Clara, in the last decade has engaged in an intense activism, linked to opposition groups. He graduated as a naval engineer, and worked as a navy officer and merchant marine.

In 2010 he opened his blog Dekaisone, denouncing the lack of liberties on the island and the violation of human rights.

*Translator’s note: The Cuban penal code establishes fines based on ’shares’ so that the entire list of fines can be changed by the single action of redefining how much a ’share’ is.

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Santa Clara Horse Cart Drivers Protest Restrictions on Street Use

Yosvani Ferrer is one of the coachmen who participated in the protest on Tuesday in Santa Clara. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Carlos A. Torres Fleites, Santa Clara, 2 March 2018 — Twenty or so drivers of horse-drawn carriages in Santa Clara, operating as buses, protested this week in the face of regulatory measures that went into effect this Thursday that restrict the circulation of their horse carts on the city’s central highway. While the authorities claim that the initiative is intended to avoid traffic accidents and improve hygiene on the roads, the coachmen complain that from now on they will transport a smaller number of passengers and earn less money.

Last Tuesday, 21 of the cocheros, licensed as self-employed, presented themselves at the local headquarters of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) to demand that the measure not take effect. During their time at the headquarters they were watched by a dozen police officers and several State Security personnel dressed in civilian clothes. continue reading

The coachmen held a meeting with Party members in the headquarters amphitheater, located on the road that goes to Camajuaní, according to Yosvani Ferrer, one of the drivers who participated in the meeting and spoke to 14ymedio.

A member of the PCC, who identified himself as Alejandro, informed the self-employed drivers that the measure is not intended to end this type of work, since it is “useful and indispensable,” but to prevent accidents on a street with high speeds and a lot of traffic.

The drivers now have as an alternative to travel via Independencia Street and their new staging area is located near the provincial Zoological Park. Drivers complain that there are fewer passengers in this area so their livelihoods will be affected.

Around twenty licensed drivers said the authorities in Santa Clara should eliminate the measures that restrict the movement of their vehicles on the central highway. (14ymedio)

The authorities also talked to the private transport providers about the problem of waste from the animals, which often ends up dumped in the streets and dirties the city.

Ferrer says that none of the complainants lost their composure and that all of the demands and questions were asked in a “correct manner.” However, after two hours of conversation the coachmen understood that the authorities’s decision was already taken and they would not be able to come to an agreement to postpone or prevent the measure.

Yasel Ramos, a coachman who has been serving the route from the Maternal Hospital to the Bus Terminal for eight years, is dissatisfied with the response received from the members of the Party.

Despite not participating in the meeting, the driver believes that the measure is “an abuse of and a lack of consideration” for those who work legally with vehicles of this type, which helps to alleviate the tense situation of passenger transport in the city.

Ramos says that the Diana-make state buses, newly incorporated into public service in the same area where the coachmen work, “do not carry 60 people because of their limited capacity.”

Another new state service with motorcycle-taxis also fails to meet passenger demand in the area because there are “only seven on that route,” Ramos said.

The horse-drawn carriages charge 2 CUP (about 8¢ US) per trip, while other private vehicles, such as cars or motorcycles, demand up to five times that price for the same route.

Yipsi Pérez, a nurse at the 20th Anniversary Polyclinic, believes the coachmen are a problem because they slow down the circulation of cars but, at the same time, they are indispensable for public transport.

The representatives of the Ministry of Transport who participated in the meeting at PCC headquarters informed the self-employed operators that in 2017, in the section of road at issue, alone, there were 22 accidents in which horse carts were involved.

In those accidents, 3 people died and there were 14 serious injuries, of which eight were to minors, in addition to thousands of pesos in material damages.

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Baracoa Struggles to Survive Hurricane Matthew

Local authorities said in March 2017 that 85% of all these damages had been resolved.(14ymedio)

14ymedio, Ignacio de la Paz, Baracoa, 2 March 2018 — The darkness envelops Baracoa as the bus arrives at the main station. Despite the power outage, a swarm of people approaches to offer the new arrivals rooms for rent and taxis.

Before arriving at the terminal, the vehicle loaded with tourists must avoid the bumps of the road, several areas in danger of landslides, and animals that roam loose, before arriving at the terminal. The poor access conditions have affected the area for some time, but the passage of Hurricane Matthew a year and five months ago worsened the situation. continue reading

With the arrival of the group of visitors there is also some relief for the inhabitants of a tourism center that suffered a blow to its infrastructure, with the effects of the coastal floods and the winds of more than 120 miles per hour that ravaged the city that night of October 4, 2016.

“We lost a lot of tourism not only because of the hurricane, but because the Americans are gone,” Candita, who owns a house with two rooms for rent, tells 14ymedio. “Some are still arriving but those who come are clients with little money,” she complains.

A few yards from Candita’s house, a private cafeteria offers pizzas and sandwiches as well as coconut candy, a typical dish of the region. “Many businesses have closed,” says an employee of the place. “The problem is the supply, since sometimes there is pizza and sometimes there isn’t; maintaining service with the unreliability of supplies is very difficult.”

The ups and downs occur, she says, because many private producers in the area have not yet recovered from the crop and livestock loses caused by the hurricane. The employee explains that before the storm it was easy to get pork in the city but now “you have to sleep in line to buy a few pounds.”

The majority of tourists who choose Baracoa stay within the area of rental houses, the historic center and colonial buildings, but Baracoa has another face less known and that has not been rebuilt as quickly as the state hotels, such as the legendary La Rusa accommodation which was very damaged on the morning of the storm.

In the province of Guantanamo alone, Matthew left in its path material losses amounting to 1.584 billion Cuban pesos (CUP), in addition to more than 38,000 damaged homes and severe problems in food production, electrical service and water supplies.

In Baracoa, 24,104 houses, of the approximately 27,000 in this city of 81,700 people, were affected. In addition, 500 properties of state agencies suffered damages.

Local authorities claimed in March 2017 that 85% of all these damages had been resolved, but many still remain in the coastal area and in buildings along the malecon.

The beach is no longer a place of relaxation where dozens of people went every day and the sports field is still devastated. In several buildings near the sea you can hear the sounds of the hammers of those who come to take bricks and rebar from houses that will not be lived in again.

Although the Government approved a bonus of 50% of the value of construction materials and facilitated access to bank loans and subsidies for those who partially or totally lost their homes, residents complain of delays in supplies, the lack of some indispensable products (such as steel), and their poor quality.

Local industries can not cope with the production of construction blocks and other aggregates, which are obtained from materials collected in surface quarries. As of the middle of last year the banks had only approved about 4,000 loans with low interest rates, a tiny share of those needed for people who need financial support.

Julia, 60, is another of the many people who have not been able to restore even a single roof tile. “I have been staying with my family in a school on the Toa River since the hurricane happened,” she tells 14ymedio.

For those who lost their homes and are still housed in state facilities, the authorities are building a community in Paso Cuba, in the mountains, near La Farola. However, most of the victims are not satisfied with the idea because before the hurricane they lived close to the sea. Now, under the so-called “Life Task” — a set of actions that the Government is carrying out to minimize the effects of climate change on the island — the reconstruction of those houses near the coast has been prohibited.

“We have written several letters and raised the issue with the authorities and they tell us that the buildings on the coast can not be rebuilt,” laments Julia, whose life revolved around the sea, from which many residents take their livelihood. Fishing, from which they make a living by selling their catch to private restaurants in the area and also use for their own consumption, is the main source of income for countless families in Baracoa.

“I’m not going to leave the shelter,” insists Julia, who fears losing any chance of returning to live near the sea if she moves into the new community.

Meanwhile, numerous buildings such as bodegas, shops and even the Cabacú Casa de la Cultura and its Catholic church are still in ruins. The church, of which only some walls remain, has become a public urinal and garbage dump.

“It was already in bad condition and with the hurricane it finished falling down,” says Vivian, the secretary of the city’s bishopric, who explains that the church can not be rebuilt in the absence of its primary manager.

“Since Monsignor Wilfredo Pino, who was very active, was sent to the diocese of Camagüey, the bishopric has remained vacant and we do not know when it will be covered,” she says. The faithful of the community “meet in private houses of worship to celebrate the Mass,” she adds.

“This city has not been the same since,” says a neighbor who has approached the bishopric to look for donated medicines. “We have been very badly off economically, with fewer tourists, less money and no bishop.”

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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.

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.

continue reading

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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