Category: El Sexto – Danilo Maldonado Machado

When to Die for Art is to Live / Somos+

The Somos+ Family in solidarity with Danilo Maldonado Machado “El Sexto.” A hug, amigo.

Farewell letter from El Sexto

Valle Grande Prison

From the “cell” (of punishment)

September 16, 2015…

Where I am there is little light and I am in my underwear because I do not want to wear the prison uniform. They give me a mattress for 5 or 6 hours at night. I only drink water and there will be no ability to respond (from you to this letter) because they don’t allow contacts.

Thanks to Lia, Gorki, Antonio and everyone for helping my mother manage things. Thanks to Aylín for the beautiful and encouraging letters. I read them as many times as I could, I would like to write you a thousand letters like you deserve but now I do not think I will have the light, the paper, nor the energy to do it.

The entire letter can be read here.

Spanish post
26 September 2015

Let Us Save the Life of El Sexto Now! / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo

sextotattoosOrlando Luis Pardo Lazo, 25 September 2015 — Please, let’s call at all times to Valle Grande Prison, and claim respectfully but firmly for the life of Cuban artist Danilo Maldonado Machado (the street artist El Sexto). He has been jailed since December 2014 in Cuba, without trial, and now he is on a hunger strike and he’s being tortured in solitary confinement, with cramps, shivering and headaches.

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Valle Grande Penitentiary, Arroyo Arenas, CP 11200, Havana, Cuba.

‘El Sexto’ Writes A Farewell Letter From His Cell / 14ymedio

Danilo Maldonado, 'El Sexto'. (Claudio Fuentes)
Danilo Maldonado, ‘El Sexto’. (Claudio Fuentes)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 25 September 2015 — The artist Danilo Maldonado, known as “El Sexto” (The Sixth), wrote a “farewell letter” from the Valle Grande prison where he has been detained since last December for trying to organize a performance at which he would have released two pigs painted with the names Raul and Fidel in a public place. The letter, dated Sept. 16, was published by the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba (FHRC) on its website. [An English version of the letter is here.]

The graffiti artist, imprisoned without trial or sentence, has maintained a hunger strike since 8 September.

Farewell Letter from El Sexto / Danilo Maldonado

Danilo-maldonado-BW-Headshot-720x425Valle Grande Prison

From the “cell” (of punishment)

September 16, 2015…

Where I am there is little light and I am in my underwear because I do not want to wear the prison uniform. They give me a mattress for 5 or 6 hours at night. I only drink water and there will be no ability to respond (from you to this letter) because they don’t allow contacts.

Thanks to Lia, Gorki, Antonio and everyone for helping my mother manage things. Thanks to Aylín for the beautiful and encouraging letters. I read them as many times as I could, I would like to write you a thousand letters like you deserve but now I do not think I will have the light, the paper, nor the energy to do it.

This may be my last letter from here in the punishment cell and if I survive you will hear more from my lips. So I want to tell everyone that I waited too long for this moment to do a hunger strike, we Cubans have wanted too long to expel these scoundrels.

Now that I have started, I feel my faith, determination and self-esteem go through the roof for having decided. I feel proud of being the artist that I am and of doing the art that I do for the Cuba I represent. So I am willing to give my life a hundred times if necessary.

He who lives without finding out what to die for, has not found the essence of life. A man with ideals of peace, love and one who does not carry a weapon to assert his opinions is the man of the future. Because with his faith, his hope, he builds an Eden here on earth.

Thank you all for trusting me and know that if I die I will die happy to carry with me a tattoo of my time like Laura Pollan, Oswaldo Paya, who left traces of their existence, of their generation, of their responsibility to leave behind then a legacy for their loved ones, one lesson: love what you do and devote your life to it.

I was born in a poor neighborhood, Nuevitas, Camagüey. My family is very humble: I lived in Arroyo Arenas from age 4; in Chafarinas, Guira de Melena; in Covadonga, Las Tunas: a village still without electricity; Guáimaro, Camagüey and Arroyo Arenas, La Lisa. And I was lucky to live in Vedado often, there I have my daughter Renata María, who was born in England.

I am a wanderer and I have gone here and there getting to know my country, my culture, that I love and so I raise my voice to denounce what seems wrong to me. I visited Holland for three months, I lived in The Hague, 45 minutes by train from the fabulous Amsterdam. I studied and lived at Miami Dade College in the United States for three months as well. All these places taught to me relate quickly to my surroundings, that the most important thing is to have friends, to love, to respect and not to do to anyone what we do not want them to do to us. I learned how to stand up to the powerful.

My art is respected today, more than anything because I believe in it. I respected it and gave it—and give it—all my strength, perseverance, affection and love. Although I was misunderstood and perhaps by others I still am, when those around you see so much love and how much you are able to give and how much you respect your art, then they begin to value it. But first we must build an altar of consecration in our chest and others, little by little, will begin to respect you for what you do: this knowledge is my legacy.

Someone said that all of humanity will part when we see a man who knows where he is going. This might be my last work and I have named it “Drawing Attention” or “The Awakening of the Inner Magician.” Each one of us has an inner magician. May my Gothic existence touch your hearts and light your flame and awaken your internal leader, being conscious of this gift of life and standing up against evil. Someone said, “The world is not this way because of those who do evil but because of those who allow it.”

This work is dedicated to my mother, my little daughter Renata María, to all those who support me, all those who added a grain of sand to achieve freedom for Cuba. To all the Ladies in White in the world and especially in Cuba: no more beating of women! To the memory of Laura, Oswaldo, Zapata.

This work is dedicated to my mother, my little daughter Renata María, to all those who support me, all who put in a grain of sand to achieve the freedom of Cuba. To all the Ladies in White of the world especially those in Cuba: no more beating of women! In memory of Laura, Oswaldo, Zapata.

The day I grabbed a spray can in my hand I decided what to do with my life.

So be it.

I am with faith and conviction: Liberty or death, to die for art is to live.

Hugs,

Danilo Maldonado, El Sexto.

Please sign for his freedom at Causes.com. < click there

El Sexto has been on a hunger strike since September 8th. He is demanding his freedom because he has been imprisoned since December 25th (of last year) for thinking to release some pigs with the names of Fidel and Raul, which he never released because he was imprisoned. He is in prison without trial or sentence or justice.

Friends of ‘El Sexto’ Ask the Pope to Intercede for His Release / 14ymedio, Luz Escobar

The social media campaign under the hashtags #FreeElSexto #LibertadParaDanilo continues to gather steam. (Causes.org)
The social media campaign under the hashtags #FreeElSexto #LibertadParaDanilo continues to gather steam. (Causes.org)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Mexico, 13 September 2015 — Fifty friends of Danilo Maldonado, El Sexto (the Sixth), signed a letter to Pope Francis on Sunday, asking him to intercede for the release of the artist. The letter, published in the digital site Causes, states: “We come to you with the hope that you can intercede to repair the injustice against this young artist.”

The signatories to this letter describe El Sexto as an artist who decided “to express his dissatisfaction with the Government through graffiti and handing out flyers.” They explain that for this reason “he has lived under constant police vigilance and harassment.” A pressure expressed through innumerable arrests, “arbitrary searches of his home and confiscation of his paint cans.”

The initiative, promoted by his friend and colleague Lia Villares, explains that “for more than eight months he has been held in custody without a trial or formal accusations [and thus] we, Danilo’s friends, are demanding his unconditional release and that our most essential freedoms be respected.” The text also makes “a call for genuine and transparent tolerance.” continue reading

El Sexto was arrested last December 25, while preparing for a performance that would have dropped two pigs in a Havana square with the names Fidel and Raul painted on their sides. Currently he is being held in the Valle Grande prison, accused of disrespect, a crime which could result in a sentence of from one to three years in prison, although to date he has not been taken to trial.

The letter also conveys the fear of many activists that there will be a possible wave of repression during the days of Pope Francis’s visit to the Island. “Know that many of us will be incarcerated for the sole reason of your visit to Cuba,” it warns. “Our telephone services will be illegally cut off to prevent our attending the Mass at Civic Plaza*.”

A strong police operation was carried out against peaceful dissidents and opponents during the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to Cuba. Between March 26 and 28 in 2012, when he was in the country, the authorities carried out dozens of arrests of activists, house arrests and massive cuts in the mobile phone lines belonging to representatives of independent civil society.

The signatories of the letter concluded that “the right to freedom of expression and artistic creation deserves respect and value,” such that “our government must protect critical artists, not persecute them.”

In recent weeks, several independent groups have sent letters to Pope Francis in advance of his arrival in Cuba. Among them are the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), the United Anti-totalitarian Front (FANTU) and the Cuban Civil Society Open Forum. Almost all messages agree in the request for the release of political prisoners and to intercede with the Government of Cuba for greater freedom and dialogue.

*Translator’s note: “Civic Plaza” is the pre-Revolution name of what is now called the “Plaza of the Revolution.”

Open Letter to Pope Francis for the Release of “El Sexto”

Freedom for Danilo
Open Letter to the Pope
Havana, September 8, 2015

Your Holiness, Pope Francis:

In advance of your visit to our island, a group of Cuban citizens wish to call your attention to a case that needs an immediate solution. This is the politically motivated imprisonment of Danilo Maldonado Machado, a young artist who decided to express his dissatisfaction with the government through graffiti (urban or street art) and handing out flyers.

Also know as “El Sexto” (The Sixth) – an antithesis of “The Five”: a superhero invented for his creative work in the public space – Danilo has lived under constant police surveillance and harassment since he began the exercise of his art: he has been arbitrarily arrested countless times, they have arbitrarily searched his home, and confiscated his paint cans.

For more than eight months he has been held in custody without a trial or formal charges. On December 25, 2014 he prepared a Christmas performance. It consisted of releasing, in Central Park in Havana, two piglets greased with the names “Fidel” and “Raul painted on their backs. An action based on a Cuban peasant tradition. He named it, “Rebellion on the Farm” [The title used in Spanish for the novel “Animal Farm”]. continue reading

Agents intercepted him on the way and since then, like someone who tried very hard before the tribunal to pronounce the precise letters that evoke “The Unnamable” with profane intentions, and he remains in a maximum security prison on the outskirts of Havana.

Danilo has been declared a prisoner of conscience. Confined to Valle Grande Prison for Contempt, an offense described in Article 144.2 of the Cuban Penal Code which provides for a sentence of one to three years for anyone “who threatens, slanders, defames, insults or in any way offends or affronts, orally or in writing, the dignity or decorum … the President of the State Council, the President of the National Assembly of People’s Power, members of the State Council or the Council of Ministers or the Deputies to the National Assembly People Power.”

Converting his action into a crime penalized with disproportionate penalties, only demonstrates that in Cuba the law criminalizes and discriminates against those who think differently: our Constitution denies all freedoms that are “contrary to the principles of the Revolution.”

We do not trust the judicial system where the State plays all the roles: prosecutor, defense attorney and judge at the same time. At this time his record is lost and the defense can do nothing until formally until it appears.

The prosecution has rejected three times a request for a change of pre-trial conditions for Danilo so that he can await his trial in freedom; according to the argument of the defense: the crime or “crazy idea… was not carried out.” The prosecutor’s response states that Danilo is a citizen with “the worst social conduct” and “is not socially useful.”

As friends with ideas that diverge from the official discourse, we have been prohibited from visiting him in prison. In solidarity, we have publicized the case in concerts under [police] surveillance, expositions of Danilo’s drawings made during his long confinement, in collections of signatures, and campaigns on social networks. We have marched together with the Ladies in White, demanding an Amnesty Law for political prisoners, while the State insists on denying that they exist, and at the same time every Sunday they deploy excessive violence in unjustified police operations against these women, who walk in peace and who are as well known as the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo.

We come to you with the hope that you can intercede to repair the injustice against this young artist who has only committed the crime of daring to be free.

The right to freedom of expression and artistic creation deserves respect and value because Cuba presents itself to the world as a country that loves Education and Culture. Our government should protect the interests of critical artists – because one is an artist by nature – not persecute them. Our artists need to be considered and respected as key actors of social change, not condemned to prison or censorship.

As Danilo’s friends we demand his unconditional release and that our most essential freedoms be respected. We call for a genuine and transparent tolerance: the end of systematic and unjustified violence against the Ladies in White and every Cuban citizen who wishes to demonstrate in peace using the public space.

Know that many of us will be incarcerated for the sole reason of your visit to Cuba and our telephone services will be illegally cut off to prevent our attending the Mass at Civic Plaza, as happened during the visit of His Holiness Benedict XVI, when the authorities deployed a massive police operation throughout the country, limiting the freedom of movement of peaceful citizens, and suspending without notice and against every law governing telecommunications services. “Vow of Silence” is what the government called that unprecedented operation, which we remember as the “Holy Blackout.”

We bid you welcome to our island, inhabited for the most part by the humble. Our intention is to wish you a pilgrimage of peace. We also desire with all our hearts that your visit will be gratifying and fruitful for everyone involved, including us, all Cubans, and will bring that peace that we so urgently need along with a genuine hope of rapid prosperity and national healing.

Signed

Gorki Águila, músico (La Habana)
Lia Villares, artista (La Habana)
Claudio Fuentes, fotógrafo y editor (La Habana)
Berta Soler, Dama de Blanco (La Habana)
Tania Bruguera, artivista (New York)
Ángel Santiesteban, escritor (La Habana)
Luis Trápaga, pintor (La Habana)
Ciro Javier Díaz Penedo, músico y matemático (São Paulo)
Laritza Diversent, abogada independiente (La Habana)
Ailer González, artista (La Habana)
Lizabel Monica, escritora y artista multidisciplinaria (Princeton, New Jersey)
Camilo E. Olivera, periodista independiente (La Habana)
Yania Suárez, escritora (La Habana)
Boris González Arenas, cineasta (La Habana)
Ernesto Pérez Chang, escritor (La Habana)
Rosa María Payá (Miami)
Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, escritor y fotógrafo (Reykjavíj, Islandia)
Regina Coyula, editora (La Habana)
Elena Victoria Molina, cineasta (Barcelona)
Aylin Sardiña Fernández, estilista (Gunzburg, Alemania)
Eliécer Ávila Cicilia, ingeniero informático (La Habana)
Iván Hernández Carrillo, sindicalista independiente (Matanzas)
Haisa Alicia Rosabal, editora (Villa Clara)
Sayli Navarro, Dama de Blanco (Matanzas)
Sonia Álvarez Campello, Dama de Blanco (Matanzas)
Yoaxis Marcheco, máster en Teología (Villa Clara)
Mario Félix Lleonart, pastor bautista (Villa Clara)
Maria Victoria Machado, madre de Danilo (La Habana)
Maria Caridad González, abuela de Danilo (La Habana)
Francisco Javier Machado, abuelo de Danilo (La Habana)
Jorge Maldonado Cruz, padre de Danilo (La Habana)
Indira Maldonado Machado, hermana de Danilo (La Habana)
José Darien Espinosa, hermano de Danilo (La Habana)
Frank Correa Lopey, artesano (La Habana)
Aurelio Cobarrubia Rivera, artesano (La Habana)
Erik Jennische, Civil Rights Defenders (Estocolmo)
Oscar Antonio Casanella Saint-Blancard, bioquímico (La Habana)
Dagne Ramírez, diseñadora (New York)
Suyai Otaño, artista (Argentina)
Armando Valdés Zamora, escritor y profesor universitario (París)
Joel Echevarria Rabago, ciudadano de amor (Hialeah)
Azucena Plasencia, periodista (La Habana)
Mariana Hernández, Cuban Soul Foundation (Florida)
Pedro Luis Vidal, Cuban Soul Foundation (Miami)
Karinna Álvarez, Cuban Soul Foundation (Miami)
Sisi Portuondo, Cuban Soul Foundation (Miami);
Yoani Sánchez, 14ymedio (La Habana)

If you want to add your signature also you can do so by sending your information to the following address:

danilosomostodos@gmail.com

Just add your name, profession and where you live!

Thanks !!!
…
Forward please contact your lists!

Complaint to the Prosecutor (CubaLex, August 2015)  https://goo.gl/SNR6uN

Danilo’s personal blog  http://delsexto.blogpot.com

 

El Sexto’s Mother Fears for His Health in Prison, Where an Outbreak of Dengue Fever Has Occurred / Diario de Cuba, Maria Matienzo Puerto

Graffiti Artist El Sexto (JUSTICE AND PEACE)
Graffiti Artist El Sexto (JUSTICE AND PEACE)

diariodecubalogoDiario de Cuba, María Matienzo Puerto, Havana, 5 September 2015 — The mother of graffiti artist El Sexto (Danilo Maldonado), María Victoria Machado, following her visit to her son on Friday at Valle Grande prison, reports that her son’s case file is “lost.”

In statements to Diario de Cuba, Machado expressed her anguish over this development, as well as for the health of her son, and the sanitary conditions in the prison. Because of health reasons, the artist ceased the hunger strike he had recently announced.

“I was quite worried about the cold he had,” Machado said after having visited him in prison. “Although he had ceased the hunger strike, he barely touched any food. I could see he had no appetite.”

Likewise, his mother said that her primary concern is the disappearance of his case file. “What they want to do is to prolong his imprisonment with no charges filed, nor justice served. They have kicked us around. And nobody can explain the file’s disappearance.”

El Sexto told his mother how the inmates had gone for three days without drinking water, while an outbreak of dengue had led to daily fumigations at the prison.

Another reprisal inflicted on the artist is to cross off his list of approved visitors any friends deemed objectionable by State Security.

El Sexto Confirms from Jail His Hunger Strike / 14ymedio

Danilo Maldonado, known as El Sexto (The Sixth)
Danilo Maldonado, known as El Sexto (The Sixth)

14ymedio, Havana, 27 August 2015 – In a telephone call this Thursday, artist Danilo Maldonado, El Sexto, confirmed that he is on a hunger strike. From the Valle Grande prison he also referred to his mother, Maria Victoria Machado, whom a State Security agent had told of his “speedy release.” The graffiti artist has made the announcement cautiously because it is not the first time that “they have tricked him with something like this,” Machado told this daily.

On August 24, El Sexto’s family waited outside the prison for hours for his release. Days before, an official from State Security had reported that date as the one on which he would be liberated. However, the prison authorities denied that “an order or paper allowing him to leave” had arrived. The graffiti artist advised that he would declare himself on hunger strike, although until today his situation could not be confirmed.

Wednesday at the Office of Attention to the Valle Grande Jail Population, Machado was assisted by an official who assured her that no one in the penitentiary center was on hunger strike. However, on exiting, relatives of other prisoners advised her that her son together with other prisoners had begun a fast.

El Sexto recently received the International Vaclav Havel 2015 Prize for creative dissidence, awarded in a ceremony organized under the framework of the Oslo Freedom Forum which he could not attend because he was in prison.

The artist has been imprisoned since last December on a charge of contempt for having tried to carry out a performance with two pigs painted with the names of “Fidel” and “Raul.” Eight months after his arrest he has not been taken before a court.

Translated by Mary Lou Keel

Police Warn Gorki Aguila He Will Not Leave Cuba If He Continues His Activism / 14ymedio

The musician Gorki Águila, leader of Porno para Ricardo. (EFE)
The musician Gorki Águila, leader of Porno para Ricardo. (EFE)

14ymedio, Havana, 5 August 2015 – After several hours of being detained by the police, the musician Gorki Águila was released at around four in the afternoon on Wednesday. During his arrest he was taken to the Fifth Station in the Havana municipality of Playa where an official warned him that he would not leave Cuba again if he continued attending the Sunday marches of the Ladies in White, according to what Gorki told 14ymedio in a telephone conversation.

The rocker and leader of the band Porno para Ricardo detailed that they warned him that his arrest would be brief, but if he continued to pursue his activism, “Those who invite you to visit other countries will have to come looking for you in boat.”

Hours earlier, his daughter Gabriele had denounced that, “Yesterday at noon they brought a police citation, which he received but he refused to sign it because he didn’t know the reason behind it.” The police agents were looking for the rocker for a couple of hours today at noon; a call to the phone number 18806 — through which one can ask for information about any citizen detained — which did not reveal his whereabouts nor the reason for his arrest.

The last time the musician Gorki Águila slept in a cell was at the end of May, when he was arrested outside Havana’s Museum of Fine Arts for carrying a sign with the image of the graffiti artist El Sexto, with the word “freedom.” This Wednesday history was about to repeat itself.

 

Blogger and Activist Angel Santiesteban Released from Prison / 14ymedio

Angel Santiesteban. (14ymedio)
Angel Santiesteban. (14ymedio)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, 17 July 2015 — The writer and journalist Angel Santiesteban Prats was released from prison on Friday night. Speaking to 14ymedio, Santiesteban said he wanted the quick release of other activists and that a new stage “of struggle” was now starting.

“Just a few minutes ago Major Adonis and First Lieutenant Guillarte said “Angel Santiesteban, congratulations, you have just been released’,” explained the writer. “Then I was given my personal belongings and left.” Asked by this newspaper about his next steps, he answered: “Now, to fight, and other releases have to happen, such as that of El Sexto (Danilo Maldonado).”

In December of 2012, after a process that has been labeled by many as arbitrary and precipitous, Santiesteban was convicted and sentenced to five years in prison for “violation of domicile and injuries.” Since 2008, he has published in his activist blog, The Children Nobody Wanted, in support of human rights on the island.

From the prison where he began his sentence, the Lawton Settlement Prison, in Havana, he passed from one prison to another, accused of “attempted escape.” For almost a year, he was imprisoned in the Border Patrol Unit, west of Havana, a military base where he experienced a more severe prison regimen.

Angel Santiesteban has won important literary awards, including the Casa de las Américas Prize in 2006. His book The Summer God Slept received the Franz Kafka Novels From The Drawer Prize in 2013.

Reporters Without Borders had called on the Cuban authorities to withdraw all charges against Angel Santiesteban Prats and release him immediately.

‘El Sexto’ dedicates his award to his jailers to show them that he is not alone / 14ymedio

Lia Villares collects the award for Danilo Maldonado, "El Sexto” Wednesday in Oslo. (MileydiMC)
Lia Villares collects the award for Danilo Maldonado, “El Sexto” Wednesday in Oslo. (MileydiMC)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 27 May 2105 – The Cuban artist Danilo Maldonado, known as El Sexto, could not collect the 2015 International Vaclav Havel Prize for Creative Dissidence, in the ceremony organized by the Oslo Freedom Forum. The prize, awarded by the Human Rights Foundation (HRF) of New York, was received by the activist Lia Villares, since the graffiti artist has been in prison since last December, charged with contempt, for trying to stage a performance with two pigs decorated with the names “Fidel” and “Raul.”

After presenting a brief music video, with the refrain repeating “Three years [in prison] for two pigs, no,” and closing with the images of a rally to demand freedom for the artist and the phrase, “Contempt should never be avoided,” Villares read a letter written by El Sexto from Villa Marista penitentiary. continue reading

“I want to dedicate this prize also to those who have me in prison, to remind them that I am not alone,” the artist said. The graffiti artist also thanked the Ladies in White, his daughter, the writer Angel Santiesteban (who is also in prison) and the artist Tania Bruguera (arrested this Sunday in front of her house and released shortly afterward).

The other award winners, members of the Sudanese non-violent resistance movement and the Indonesian comic Girifna Sakdiyah Ma’ruf, personally received a representation of the Goddess of Democracy, the iconic statue erected by Chinese students during protests in Tiananmen Square in June 1989.

The Oslo Freedom Forum, which opened Monday in the Norwegian capital and will close on Wednesday, gathers the proponents of freedom and human rights from several countries. This year’s gathering is the Freedom Forum’s seventh, and focuses “on those places where it is impossible to stage protests, which are silenced or attacked, as in Cuba and Russia,” according to its founder, Thor Halvorssen.

Gorki Aguila Arrested in Front of the Museo de Bellas Artes in Havana / Diario de Cuba

"This too shall pass"
“This too shall pass” (Danilo’s artwork from prison)

diariodecubalogoDiario de Cuba, Havana, 24 May 2015 – The musician Gorki Águila, leader of the band Porno para Ricardo, was arrested by State Security agents on Saturday night in front of the Museo de Bellas Artes in Havana.

Gorki Aguila
Gorki Aguila

Águila went to hold up a sign on the outside wall of the museum with the word “Libertad” (Freedom) and the image of the graffiti artist Danilo Maldonado, known as El Sexto, imprisoned since last 25 December, when he allegedly went to Havana’s Central Park with two piglets named “Fidel” and “Raúl,” to stage a performance.

After Águila’s action, recognized repressors from State Security’s Section 21, posted in the area, approached the musician and forced him into a car. Meanwhile, Águila shouted demands for “Freedom for Danilo!”

The repressors were in the area because of the inauguration of a show that presumably was going to be attended by the artist Tania Bruguera, now retained on the Island without her passport because of an attempt to stage her performance Tatlin’s Whisper in the Plaza of the Revolution last 30 December.

This coming Wednesday, 27 May, the Oslo Freedom Forum, a principal world event dedicated to human rights, awarded El Sexto the Prize for Creative Dissidence.

Thank you from Danilo Maldonado for the 2015 Vaclav Havel Award

"This too shall pass"
“This too shall pass”

Danilo Maldonado (El Sexto), Valle Grande Prison, April 2015 — From the Valle Grande prison I thank you for the Vaclav Havel International Award for Creative Dissent from the Human Rights Foundation.

When something like this happens, and even more so given the conditions I am in, it makes me believe that what I have done has not been in vain.

The love for what I do and the love that every person brings to noble and just causes can never be extinguished by violence and lies.

I congratulate the winners and want you to know that being locked up in this prison will not stop me for one minute from pursuing my dream of freedom for all Cubans.

I want to express a special thanks to Tania Bruguera, thank you for your support, I admire you very much!

Danilo Maldonado
El Sexto (The Sixth)

European Parliament Members call for EU mediation to release Cuban artists from prison / 14ymedio

The vice president of the Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party in the European Parliament, Pavel Telicka. (European Democratic Party)
The vice president of the Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party in the European Parliament, Pavel Telicka. (European Democratic Party)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 24 April 2015 — The vice presidents of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe Party of the European Parliament, Fernando Maura and Pavel Telicka, have asked the High Representative of the European Union for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy, Frederica Mogherini, to intervene with the Havana Government for the release from prison of Angel Santiesteban and Danilo Maldonado. In a letter to Mogherini, signed by some thirty Eurodeputies, they also call for an end to the “prolonged confinement” of Tania Bruguera.

In a letter released this Friday, the Eurodeputies ask Mogherini to mediate for the withdrawal of the charges for “counterrevolutionary activities” against the regime opponent Antonio Rodiles and his partner Ailer Gonzalez. continue reading

Maura and Telicka argue that “any step in the advancement of international diplomacy must be accompanied by a demand for a radical change in Cuban policies that restrict freedom of expression and imprison dissidents,” and they demand that respect for human rights “prevails” in relations between the European Union and Cuba.

The graffiti artist Danilo Maldonado, known as El Sexto , has been in prison since last December on charges of contempt and he continues to wait for trial. He was arrested while trying to stage a performance with two pigs stamped with the names “Fidel” and “Raul.”

The writer Ángel Santiesteban is serving a sentence of five years for an alleged crime of violation of domicile. However, activists and independent lawyers have denounced the many irregularities that were brought to bear during his trial.

Bruguera is currently unable to leave Cuba, because she is being legally prosecuted for the events arising from her attempt to organize a performance this last December. Since then, the artist has denounced “a constant psychological war.”