Category: Angel Santiesteban

Mysteriously, those seconds of the image of the altercation that Telesur showed were not repeated. A call from their politicians censured them. For its part, Cuba, through its media of communication, affirmed that the disturbance was started by the opposition, but it’s not what the cameras picked up.

When the Cuban Book Fair took place in Guadalajara, Mexico in 2002, the same thing happened. The Cuban envoys packed the room for the presentation of “Free Writing” and attacked the exhibitors.

We know it’s the way the rulers and their stooges think. They operate without any political conscience, only for the gifts they receive from those in power.

And what is happening in the media reports of the Obama-Castro conversations doesn’t make me suspect the Cuban side, because they are who they are, and nobody can change them. I distrust the North American side; I ask myself what they really are looking for, because I haven’t seen an iota of progress nor interest from the Dictator, except that of hanging onto power with the money he thinks he will earn once the embargo is lifted.

If it’s a matter of consistency, I don’t see a positive path for these erroneous negotiations because they were conceived, from their birth, as a deformed and retarded creature. While Washington and Havana lose time in delayed conversations, Cuban dissidents continue to resist unjust incarceration and the constant beatings.

I don’t know if Obama will abandon us or not, but I’m convinced that God remains on our side.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

Border Control Prison, Havana. April 2015.

Translated by Regina Anavy

The participants urged governments to respect the rights of citizens and non-citizens equally to share their voices, ideas, values, beliefs and dreams without fear of persecution or violence.

“As citizens of the world, with a shared humanity, we urge the Government of Cuba to drop charges against Tania Bruguera, Angel Santiesteban and Danilo Maldonado ’El Sexto,’ all of whom are in prison or facing prison for having done what every person on the planet ought to be able to do: express oneself.”

An action for artists Tania Bruguera, Angel Santiesteban, and Danilo Maldonado “El Sexto”

By re-staging Tania Bruguera’s participatory art work, Tatlin’s Whisper 6, the Hammer Museum stands in solidarity with her, Angel Santiesteban, and Danilo Maldonado “El Sexto”, and all other artists around the world who face criminal charges and violence for exercising their basic human right to free expression. As article 19 of the United Nations Declaration of Human Rights states, Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers.

On Monday, April 13, from 12:30-2PM, all were invited to step up and speak freely for one minute about freedom of speech as part of the performance. The event was streamed live online.

For more information about the event: CLICK HERE.

Translated by Regina Anavy

11 April 2015

For his part, Chancelor Bruno Rodriguez, according to the presented medium, spoke of “the calamities on the world level, like hunger, preventable illness and illiteracy,” furthermore reaffirming the words of his “president,” Raul Castro, that “Cuba is not ready to falter nor cede its ideological points of view.”

At the height of cynicism he affirmed that “Cuba complies with the Declaration of Human Rights” and that it has signed the “most important conventions in this matter.” He also affirmed “Cuba’s prestige in sitting on the United Nations Human Rights Council.” And as if this were a public display of someone demented, demonstrating his total incoherence, he continued, “Proof of Cuba’s goodwill was its acceptance of 80 percent of the suggestions in the Human Rights Assembly in Geneva.”

How can a country that admits that it violates 80 percent of the Human Rights Convention assert that it enjoys “prestige on an international level?” I imagine it’s the opposite, that it “enjoys” in a negative way. But if neither they themselves understand, how could I?

In the end, according to what they demonstrated in Washington, both delegations squandered the contributors’ money, something that Cubans are used to doing, without even having the right to criticize officially in this regard.

Since December 17, when they made the secret conversations public between Obama and Castro, we raised our voices to affirm that they failed, and that they won’t achieve what Cuban civil society needs.

Castro is trying to gain time so Cuba will be taken off the list of terrorist nations, so that later the North American Congress will withdraw the embargo, although inevitably, already, there are reports of increased tourism, which Obama announced. It’s now reported that some million more tourists will help the asphyxiating and wasted Cuban economy, money that the dictatorship will know how to use later to repress those who oppose the social, economic and political model of the Castro clan.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

Border Control Prison. Havana. April 2015

Translated by Regina Anavy

Already at 14 the girl was giving away her recent-woman’s body, and she unlocked her virginity to that man who was 26 years older. It was barely noticeable when she showed her phone or the brand-name tennis shoes that none of the young boys of her generation could offer.

Finally, the police determined that if they were to lock up every man who let himself be seduced by a minor, the prisons wouldn’t be big enough. Today they’re already full, and since rape wasn’t involved, it was permissible. And they freed him.

“It’s normal,” said the official who led the investigation. “I’ve had worse cases of girls up to 12 years old who have relations with mature men.”

The stepfather sighed, relieved.

“Every night we detain girls practicing prostitution with the consent of their parents,” continued the official, who shook the stepfather’s hand before saying goodbye to him.

“It’s no wonder,” he said, looking at the cellphone in the stepfather’s hand. “With such a weapon you can make anyone fall into bed with you.”

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

Border Guard Prison Unit. Havana. February 2015.

Translated by Regina Anavy

The Ladies in White, together with their leader, Berta Soler, and one of the 75 prisoners of the Black Spring, Angel Moya, Antonio Rodiles, Ailer Gonzalez, Claudio Fuentes and Tania Bruguera, among others, were captured, some for several days, and, coincidentally, have all opposed the reestablishment of relations.

It’s painful that this distance exists between both factions, which, when united, have suffered so much abuse from the dictatorship. Some who accept relations keep quiet about the abuses committed toward those who think differently.

In a certain way, they have to recognize that silence converts them into accomplices of the Regime. We can’t forget that in different ways, thinking from parallel paths, is precisely what transforms us in dissidence, because we came fleeing from belonging to that mob that accedes to the call of the Dictator, which sometimes, even in an indirect way, can manipulate us in its favor.

Although we think that others are wrong, we should defend their right to be so. There is no one dissidence that is bland and another that is extreme, only degrees that are necessary and that strive for the same thing.

Ángel Santiesteban-Prats

Unidad de Guardafronteras Prison, Havana. March 2015.

Translated by Regina Anavy