Luz Escobar – Translating Cuba

El Funky, One of the Authors of ‘Homeland and Life’ Receives a Deportation Order From the US.

“My life is in danger in Cuba,” says Eliexer Márquez “El Funky”

“I have 30 days to leave the country or I’ll be deported,” El Funky wrote on social media. / Facebook/El Funky.

14ymedio, Luz Escobar / Yaiza Santos, Madrid, May 9, 2025 (delayed translation) — Eliexer Márquez “El Funky,” one of the authors of Patria y Vida, the anthem of the 11 July 2021 protests, winner of two Grammy Awards, persecuted in Cuba for his dissenting songs, and exiled in the United States for three and a half years, has a deportation order. He announced it himself on Thursday, with three lines posted on his Facebook wall.

“I have 30 days to leave the country or I will be deported,” the rapper wrote, while asking for support “from all my Cuban brothers and sisters who know about my anti-communist history and from the members of Congress of this country.” As he explained to 14ymedio by phone, the US denied him residency due to the one-year-and-three-month prison sentence he served on the island for marijuana possession more than eight years ago.

He never concealed this background from the US authorities, and they requested more details about it while he was processing his permanent residency under the Cuban Adjustment Act. This, he admits, was a mistake. “I should have requested political asylum upon arrival, but I trusted the lawyer they assigned me,” says El Funky about the lawyer recommended to him by his colleague and co-author of Patria y Vida, Yotuel Romero. The man was a professional with a track record, he says, but he always disagreed with him. continue reading

“I always told him: Brother, my case is for political asylum, but he insisted on the Adjustment Act.”

“I always told him: Brother, my case is for political asylum, but he insisted on the Adjustment Act.” The lawyer’s decision was not without logic. Since its passage in 1996, this law has been the fastest way for Cubans to obtain permanent residency in the United States—between 10 and 35 months, compared to the several years it can take to be granted asylum. With an added advantage: it allows individuals to return to Cuba, something that is prohibited for political asylum seekers, under penalty of losing their status and, therefore, their residency.

But traveling to the island isn’t something El Funky can contemplate. “It would be suicide to return; my life is worthless in Cuba. Everyone who knows my career knows that,” says the musician, who arrived in the United States in November 2021 with a special invitation to the Latin Grammy Awards, where Patria y Vida was crowned Best Song of the Year and Best Urban Song .

“There were two six-month visas, one for me and one for Maykel. They didn’t let Maykel out, but they did let me out,” he says, referring to his friend Maykel Castillo Osorbo, who at that time had already been in prison for six months and who would end up being sentenced to nine years in prison, a sentence he is still serving in Pinar del Río.

“My departure was practically an exile; those people took me to the airport.”

El Funky continues, alluding to State Security: “My departure was practically an exile; those people took me to the airport.” With threats disguised as congratulations: “Have a good trip, but don’t come back just yet. You know we can make content for you that you can live with for up to 20 years.”

After Patria y Vida was released in February 2021 and immediately became a social phenomenon, the regime’s siege against El Funky and Osorbo, the authors who lived on the island – and also Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, leader of the San Isidro Movement, who also appeared in the video clip – intensified. El Funky, in particular, was arrested on several occasions, and on one of them, precautionary measures were imposed on him to restrict his freedom of movement .

For all these reasons, he sees the regime’s hand in denying his residency: “I’m absolutely sure.” The reason he gives is that the criminal record that arrived from the island, with the sentence completed in 2017, no longer stated “possession” but rather “drug trafficking.” The sentence, El Funky points out, “makes it very clear: it was for half a marijuana cigarette. I served one year and three months, and trafficking in Cuba is punishable by five to ten years. You realize that a crime was fabricated there, especially in a case like mine.”

The rapper asserts that this was also fabricated. “In 2016, I was already making protest music with Maykel,” he recalls. “Maykel had already been imprisoned because he had made a song against Fidel [Por ti, señor]. In the sentence, you can read the neighbors’ opinions: my good behavior, that I wasn’t a criminal, that I’d never had any problems in the neighborhood, but nothing. They had to come up with a way to find me out of line.”

He trusts that his new lawyer can resolve his case so he won’t be deported.

He understands, of course, that the United States, based on his drug convictions, treats him “like a criminal,” but he trusts his new lawyer can resolve his case so he won’t be deported. “They’re taking away a case I served in Cuba, and it’s known that that dictatorship expelled me for all my actions and activism. You have to realize that this is something fabricated by the dictatorship,” he insists. “My life is in danger in Cuba.”

The artist claims he never delayed completing any immigration procedures in the United States to update his status. “Since I arrived, I started working with that lawyer, but everything kept getting delayed.” That same year, he says, they conducted the interview and began asking for more documents.

He also details his life in Miami, more as Eliexer Márquez than El Funky, working as a maintenance man at an elementary school ten minutes from his home. “I’m the head of a family, married to an American citizen who has a daughter. I have a work permit, social security, a driver’s license, all my papers are up to date, none of them expired. I have no criminal record here, I’ve never committed a single offense, not a traffic violation or anything, I’m clean. In fact, for my job at the school, with children, which is extremely sensitive, they had to conduct an in-depth investigation to find out who I was.”

Caught between a dictatorship that would immediately imprison him and a legalistic society more xenophobic than ever, Márquez’s case is reminiscent of the “scum of the earth” of 1940s Europe, as defined by Arthur Koestler: persecuted in Germany as Jews and in France for lacking a job. Far removed from music or the stage, however, his lyrics in Patria y Vida continue to resonate: “You are no longer necessary, you have nothing left, you are already going down, the people are tired of enduring, we are waiting for a new dawn.”

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The Victim of a Vicious Assault in Cuba Discovers that His Attackers Now Live in the United States

José Enrique Morales links the Herrera Pardo family to State Security

Morales (shown in photo) finds it astonishing that his assailants would be living in the United States. / Cortesía

14ymedio, Elena Nazco / Luz Escobar, Madrid, 19 July 2025 — After leaving Cuba for Mexico and requesting asylum in the United States during Donald Trump’s first term, José Enrique Morales Besada never thought he would cross paths with his attackers again. He was wrong. He discovered them eight years later where he least expected: in the very country that had given him refuge. The family of the men who brutally beat him and shattered his jaw in 2017 in Morón (a town in Ciego de Ávila province) for being gay, contacted him through social media and threatened him.

“It all started when I found out they were here in the United States,” Morales told 14ymedio in a phone interview. Now 28-years-old, he was twenty at the time of the attack. He thought he would never be able to sing again. It had been both his passion and source of income. He now earns a living as a healthcare worker and influencer under the name Vida Victoria. It was his followers who warned him that his attackers were now living in the U.S. “My followers started writing me to ask, ‘Aren’t these the guys who beat you up in Cuba?’ They also sent me photos of their profiles.”

Morales finds it astonishing that the assailants named in his asylum application, twin brothers Reisel and Leiser Herrera Pardo, would be living legally in the United States. Though now residents of Miami, the two were living for a time in Tampa, where Morales, now a naturalized citizen, currently resides. “One day I saw one of them in a pizzeria as I was leaving work and thought I was hallucinating. It turned out I wasn’t. They were here,” he recalls.

Following a video in which Morales talks about the arrival of the their family in the US, the assailants’ younger brother posted an insulting message to him online

Following a video in which Morales talks about the arrival of the brothers’ family in the US, Yaisel — the twins’ younger brother — wrote him an continue reading

insulting message to him on an Instagram chat. Soon thereafter, Morales posted a video on the platform, reporting the threats he had received during the exchange. The attackers’ father, Reisel Herrera, whom Morales claims was a well-known Cuban State Security agent in Ciego de Ávila going by the name “Mamporro,” also joined in.

“They told me to give them my number and address, that they already knew where I lived, so everyone would see that I wasn’t as brave or as handsome as I look on social media,” reports Morales, who says he will soon file a complaint against them. “They made a mistake. They told me the twins were police officers. That is impossible given the length of time they have been here.”

Reisel Herrera Pardo y Leiser Herrera Pardo / Cortesía

According to Morales, his attackers came to the U.S. during the Biden administration and are now legal residents. He points out, however, that police officers are required to have American citizenship. “They could have taken a class that trained them to be security guards but falsely claiming to be a police officer is a crime,” he notes.

“On June 11, 2017, I was savagely attacked by Cuban State Security agents and members of the National Revolutionary Police. As a result of this beating, I suffered three bone fractures in my jaw, which was displaced to the left. I lost several teeth and had bone fragments protruding from under my tongue. My face was mercilessly disfigured,” Morales wrote at the bottom of his Instagram post, in which he shared audio recordings and conversations with his assailants’ brother and father.

“I am now horrified to find out that my attackers and harassers are here in the United States, the country where I came seeking freedom, protection and justice. They wander around with impunity, seeking refuge on the very soil that saved my life,” he added.

Though the 2017 incident was treated as a homophobic hate crime, Morales is now believes the beating has the hallmarks of political corruption.

Though the 2017 incident was treated as a homophobic hate crime, Morales now believes the beating has the hallmarks of political corruption. Two other young men from Morón had their skulls beaten in by the same twins at that time. One victim never reported it “out of fear,” he says, and the other now lives in the United States.

Both of these incidents, as well as his own case, lead him to believe that his attackers were political police agents like their father, whose jobs were to intimidate homosexuals. “They didn’t just do it to me; they did it to two other two boys also. That was their thing. Would anyone be surprised to learn that State Security hires young criminals as informants, as plainclothes thugs?” he asks.

He also believes that the reason his assailants were only fined and never faced trial was because Morón’s chief prosecutor at the time was their aunt.

Morales hopes that — at least in the United States, where the law operates very differently than it does on the island — such violence and threats of attack will not fall on deaf ears. In Cuba, not even the intervention of the National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX) — an organization headed by Raúl Casstro’s daughter, Mariela Castro —led to justice. But now, he points out, “they are here.”

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One of the Authors of the Grammy Winning Cuban Protest Anthem ‘Homeland and Life’ Receives a Deportation Order From the US

“My life is in danger in Cuba,” says Eliexer Márquez “El Funky.”

14ymedio, Luz Escobar / Yaiza Santos, Madrid, 9 May 2025 — Eliexer Márquez “El Funky,” one of the authors of Patria y Vida, the anthem of the 11 July 2021 protests, winner of two Grammy Awards, persecuted in Cuba for his dissenting songs, and exiled in the United States for three and a half years, has a deportation order. He announced it himself on Thursday, with three lines posted on his Facebook wall

He never concealed this background from the US authorities, and they requested more details about it while he was processing his permanent residency under the Cuban Adjustment Act. This, he admits, was a mistake. “I should have requested political asylum upon arrival, but I trusted the lawyer they assigned me,” says El Funky about the lawyer recommended to him by his colleague and co-author of Patria y Vida, Yotuel Romero. The man was a well-established professional, he says, but he always disagreed with him.

“I always told him: Brother, my case is for political asylum, but he insisted on the Adjustment Act.”

“I always told him: ‘Brother, my case is for political asylum,’ but he insisted on the Adjustment Act.” The lawyer’s decision was not without logic. Since its passage in 1996, this law has been the fastest way for Cubans to obtain permanent residency in the United States—between 10 and 35 months, compared to the several years it can take to be granted asylum. With an added advantage: it allows them to return to Cuba, something that is prohibited for political asylum seekers, under penalty of losing their status and, therefore, their residency.

But traveling to the island isn’t something El Funky can contemplate. “It would be suicide to return; my life is worthless in Cuba, everyone who continue reading

knows my career knows that,” says the musician, who arrived in the United States in November 2021 with a special invitation to the Latin Grammy Awards, where Patria y Vida was crowned Best Song of the Year and Best Urban Song.

“There were two six-month visas, one for me and one for Maykel. They didn’t let Maykel out, but they did let me out,” he says, referring to his friend Maykel Castillo ‘Osorbo’, who at that time had already been in prison for six months and who would end up being sentenced to nine years in prison, a sentence he is still serving in Pinar del Río.

“My departure was practically an exile; those people took me to the airport.”

El Funky continues, alluding to State Security: “My departure was practically an exile; those people took me to the airport.” With threats disguised as congratulations: “Have a good trip, but don’t come back just yet. You know we can give you a sentence that you can serve for up to 20 years.”

For all these reasons, he sees the regime’s hand in denying his residency: “I’m absolutely sure.” The reason he gives is that the criminal record that arrived from the island, with the sentence completed in 2017, no longer stated “possession” but “drug trafficking.” The sentence, El Funky points out, “makes it very clear: it was for half a marijuana cigarette. I served one year and three months, and trafficking in Cuba is punishable by five to ten years. You realize that a crime was fabricated there, especially in a case like mine.”

He is confident that his new lawyer can resolve his case so that he won’t be deported.

He understands, of course, that the United States, based on his drug convictions, treats him “like a criminal,” but he is confident his new lawyer can resolve his case so he won’t be deported. “They’re taking away a case I served in Cuba, and it’s known that that dictatorship expelled me for all my actions and activism. You have to realize that this is something fabricated by the dictatorship,” he insists. “My life is in danger in Cuba.”

Caught between a dictatorship that would immediately imprison him and a legalistic society more xenophobic than ever, Márquez’s case is reminiscent of the “Scum of the Earth” of 1940s Europe, as defined by Arthur Koestler: persecuted in Germany by Jews and in France for missing a role. Far from music or the stage, however, his lyrics in Patria y Vida continue to resonate: “You are no longer necessary, you have nothing left, you are already going down, the people are tired of enduring, we are waiting for a new dawn.”
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Forced Into Exile, Luz, Carolina, Yanelys, Anamelys and Katia Reinvent Themselves Outside of Cuba

Interrogations, threats, arbitrary arrests, internet shutdowns and police repression were the price they paid for their criticism.

Escobar was warned that she could not return frequently, only if it was “very urgently needed.” / Luz Escobar

EFE (via 14ymedio), Havana, 5 April 2025 — Carolina, Yanelys, Luz, Anamelys, and Katia are just five names on the list of Cuban women forced into exile in recent years for their dissent, from mere criticism to political activism to independent journalism.

“I didn’t leave Cuba of my own free will, they sent me out,” says art historian and activist Carolina Barrero, who tells EFE that “the repression intensified throughout 2021,” following the ’27N’ demonstration on November 27 of the previous year in front of the Ministry of Culture demanding freedom of expression and work.

“The surveillance was constant: I lived under constant suspicion, in a state of constant harassment. They charged me with criminal offenses for exercising fundamental rights,” recalls Barrero, who now heads the NGO Ciudadanía y Libertad.

“The surveillance was constant: I lived under constant suspicion, in a state of constant harassment.”

She insists she suffered “systematic persecution by State Security,” intelligence, and domestic counterintelligence. “I was detained multiple times, subjected to prolonged house arrest without a court order, and threatened with imprisonment if I continued my work of reporting and organizing peaceful demonstrations,” she says.

In February 2022, she says, she received the “ultimatum”: “Leave the country or face criminal prosecution, with the explicit threat of extending reprisals to third parties such as mothers of political prisoners, fellow activists…”

Another woman, curator Yanelys Núñez tells EFE that the “institutional violence” against her began in 2016, when she was expelled from her job for creating the work The Museum of Dissidence in Cuba with the artist and dissident Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, currently in prison for insulting the symbols of the homeland, contempt, and public disorder.

The situation worsened two years later, due to the promotion of the dissident artist group the San Isidro Movement, explains Núñez from continue reading

Madrid, where she arrived in 2019. She recalls “threats to family and friends, arbitrary arrests, police and telephone surveillance, the ban on cultural events,” as well as “physical, verbal, and psychological harassment and violence.”

“The experience of being politically persecuted simply for defending your right to exist, for defending human rights, is terrible,” laments Núñez, who currently coordinates the independent Observatory of Gender Alas Tensas.

“The motive for the persecution I suffered is that Cuba has been under a dictatorship for more than 60 years, and all defenders are criminalized.”

“The motive for the persecution I suffered is that Cuba has been under a dictatorship for more than 60 years, and all defenders are criminalized,” says Núñez, adding: “I am not the first to have suffered this political violence in the country for wanting to participate in public and political life.”

Journalist Luz Escobar decided to work outside the official media. Because she worked at 14ymedio, “State Security put all the pressure they could on me to leave journalism in Cuba. But when they implicated my daughters in the repressive scheme, I decided to go into exile,” she told EFE.

“At first, they summoned me to the police, where they interrogated me to stop working. They insisted, but when I told them no, they changed their tactics and the tone of their threats: ’You’re doing things wrong, and if you continue, you’ll go to jail.’ All because reporting is a crime in Cuba,” she explains.

“After November 27th (27N), they saw me as an activist, and the repression multiplied: interrogations, threats, arbitrary arrests, internet shutdowns—all of this happened weekly,” she says. Escobar, whose father is also a freelance journalist, adds that even the day she was at the airport about to leave for Spain, she was warned that she couldn’t return frequently, only if it was “very urgent.”

“I spent weeks without being able to leave the house because security and the police were always downstairs trying to arrest me.”

Curator Anamelys Ramos, a member of the San Isidro Movement, did not leave Cuba due to pressure, although she admits she was “under brutal harassment.” “I spent weeks without being able to leave the house because security and the police were always downstairs trying to arrest me,” she told EFE.

After the Island-wide July 11 protests, the largest anti-government demonstrations in decades, she left for Mexico to study for a doctorate in Anthropology. In February 2022, when she tried to return, the “biggest outrage” occurred. “They wouldn’t even let me board the American Airlines plane because Cuba sent a notification to the airline that I wouldn’t be admitted into the country. By not letting me return, I was left in legal limbo and without a home or job,” she laments.

“I’ve always been in the spotlight of State Security,” communicator Katia Sánchez tells EFE. More than five years ago, she created La Penúltima Casa, the country’s first digital communication blog to help people use online platforms professionally.

She then created the El Pitch podcast, for entrepreneurs, in a country where the communications sector is restricted for the self-employed. As the project grew, so did the harassment from State Security, she laments. At first, it was “friendly,” with questions about her contacts and sources of funding, but it ended with “interrogations and threats that led to the closure of the project in Cuba.”

This communicator spent years “looking for loopholes to break through” to keep her project going, but “all of that ends up being bigger than starting a business.” Moving to the United States was the solution she found to keep her project afloat.

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University of Havana Offers Unrestricted Admittance Even if Students Fail the Entrance Exam

Archive image of the University of Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 28 February 2022 — All Cuban high school graduates who want to continue their studies at the university level will be able to do so this year even if they fail the entrance exams. This is how René Sánchez Díaz, an official from the Ministry of Higher Education, informed the official press as he boasted that everyone “will be able to obtain university degrees.”

The results of the entrance tests will only determine the order of the ladder for granting the available places, he specified.

The first group of students who will have the right to choose a university career will be those who have passed the exam with a minimum of 60 points, then those who have failed, and then the pre-university graduates who did not take the entrance exams

Lastly, graduates from Technical and Professional Education, from the Worker-Peasant Faculty, as well as from previous pre-university courses and other cases “assessed by the Provincial Admittance Commission” will be placed. continue reading

Reynaldo Velázquez Zaldívar, another director of the Ministry, clarified that, for now, this measure is of an “exceptional” nature, without specifying the reasons that have led them to take it

The new school year will begin on 18 April 2022 and will run until 3 February 2023, for a total of 35 weeks, which is nine weeks fewer than the duration of an ordinary course.

Reynaldo Velázquez Zaldívar, another director of the Ministry, clarified that, for now, this measure is of an “exceptional” nature, without specifying the reasons that have led them to take it, and assured that the number of places offered is 100,022, 9,000 more than the last year.

This increase in places contrasts with the notable decrease in the number of students getting a university degree. According to official figures, in the 2019-2020 academic year, 88,000 students entered Higher Education, compared to 90,691 in 2015-2016.

The official decision is reminiscent of what happened in the 70’s and 80’s in Cuba, when University education was accessed without tests and when only the students’ grades in their exams during the course were taken as a reference for the ranking.

The consequences of the abolition of these meritocratic customs, together with the indoctrination that has accompanied education for more than 60 years, have caused the quality of university studies to decline, something recognized even by Cuba’s own authorities.

This same Monday, in a note published in the newspaper El Invasor about the malfunction of State companies, an official from the University of Ciego de Ávila stated that they had detected “training problems in Cuban standards in university education itself”.

Since March 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic began to affect the Island, students of all levels have attended classes virtually, through national television

Starting in the 1990’s, with the acceptance of the dollar in Cuba, university courses began to suffer a strong devaluation relative to trades where foreign currency could be acquired, especially in the tourism sector, even if the jobs required little training, such as cleaning in hotels.

In any case, the scheduled dates for the entrance exams are March 1^st, 4^th and 8^th (for the subjects of Mathematics, Spanish and History, respectively), with an extraordinary call for those who, justifiably, cannot attend those first days, which will be held on April 4^th, 6^thand 8^th.

Since March 2020, when the Covid-19 pandemic began to affect the Island, students of all levels have attended classes virtually, through national television. After health authorities and the Government decreed a relaxation of the measures, classes have restarted in person and programs have been adjusted so that students can make up for lost time.

Higher education students were the first to join classes last year. They did it virtually through a platform created specifically for university students. This way, they were able to attend some classes that had been postponed due to the closings.

Translated by Norma Whiting

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Mother of a Young Cuban Accused of Sedition Arrested on Charges of Contempt

A leukemia patient, Castro had to spend “a week in hospital in January and it was quite serious because she fainted as a result of toxoplasmosis.” (Facebook)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 2 March 2022 — Yudinela Castro Pérez, mother of young Rowland Jesús Castillo Castro, who faces a 12-year prison sentence for demonstrating on July 11, has been transferred to the 100 y Aldabó prison. As reported on his social networks by the activist Arián Cruz, Tata Poet, Castro “has been charged with contempt” after six days of investigation.

Last Thursday, the woman had initially been taken to Villa Marista, the State Security headquarters in Havana where, Cruz denounces, that they returned to Castro “to psychologically torture her under forced interrogations.”

Days before, on February 17, José David Hernández and Misleydis Rodríguez, her friends and activists from the Opposition Movement for a New Republic were also arrested after a State Security search of their home.

A leukemia patient, Castro had to spend “a week in hospital in January and it was quite serious because she fainted as a result of toxoplasmosis,” the activist had noted in another post, in which he also specified that every day she must take “a series of medications that they did not let him give to her” when he went to inquire about her the first time. continue reading

“I would like to point out that this sick mother was arbitrarily arrested at her home, that she did not show any resistance, and that despite knowing that her arrest was unjust and illegal, she decided to cooperate and go with them to what was supposed to be ’a interview’, that’s how State Security loves to call these repressive, repulsive, and criminal interrogations,” Cruz said.

Last Friday, a habeas corpus petition was delivered in favor of Castro to the People’s Provincial Court of Havana. As Cruz detailed this Wednesday to 14ymedio, they have not yet received a response from the court, but they have already hired a lawyer for Yudinela Castro.

Since her 18-year-old son was taken to jail, Castro has denounced each of the injustices that have been committed against the young man and has not stopped demanding his freedom. She has also denounced “the lies” the regime told in the trial that was held against her son Rowland, accused of sedition and with an initial prosecutor’s request of 23 years, later reduced to 12.

On several occasions, Castro has been arbitrarily detained by State Security officials for interrogation, but she has always reiterated that “whatever it takes” nothing will stop her in her fight to achieve her son’s freedom.

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Félix Navarro, Former Prisoner of the Black Spring, Sentenced to 9 years in Prison for 11 July Protests

Sayli Navarro and her father were arrested on July 12, one day after participating in the July 11th (11J) demonstration in Perico, Matanzas. (Collage)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 2 March 2022 — The opponent Félix Navarro and his daughter, the Lady in White Sayli Navarro Álvarez, received this Wednesday the sentence that resulted from the trial held against both last January. Dissident Manuel Cuesta Morúa has detailed to 14ymedio that father and daughter were sentenced to 9 and 8 years in prison, respectively.

Cuesta Morúa expressed his support to both in on social networks, and reported that the defense has initiated an appeal process.

The opponent also detailed that the prosecution asked for 15 years in prison for Félix Navarro and 11 years for his daughter, released on bail pending trial, and in both cases they are charged with the crimes of public disorder, attack and contempt. “We hope that in some way the appeal will at least lower the sentences because in the end they did nothing, in fact they were objects of violence by the political police,” said the dissident, a member, like Navarro, of the Council for the Democratic Transition in Cuba.

Félix Navarro, 68, was one of the political prisoners of the Black Spring of 2003, when 75 opponents and independent journalists received long prison sentences. In 2011, as a result of several negotiations between the governments of Spain and Cuba and with the mediation of the Catholic Church, they were released and most went into exile, but Navarro was part of the twelve who decided to stay in Cuba. continue reading

Sayli Navarro and her father were arrested on July 12, one day after participating in the July 11th (11J) demonstration in Perico, Matanzas. The arrest occurred violently in the town’s police unit when they went to find out about the situation of other activists detained for following the peaceful protest in San Antonio de los Baños and dozens of other cities throughout the island.

Last August Navarro began a hunger strike in prison that he ended at the end of September in protest at his unfair imprisonment. At that time, his daughter denounced that he was in a “very delicate” state of health and that for that reason, after 25 days, he abandoned it.

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Sentenced to 14 Years For the 11 July Protests in Cuba and on Hunger strike, He is the Father of Two Babies

Gerardo Díaz Alonso, imprisoned for the 11 July protests, along with his wife and one of his children. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 24 February 2022 — Gerardo Díaz Alonso, one of the protesters on July 11 in Cárdenas, Matanzas, has been on a hunger strike since Friday, protesting that he was sentenced to 14 years for the crimes of sabotage and public disorder.

His wife, Mercedes Sánchez, with whom he has two children – one a year and a half old and the other just 20 days old – tells 14ymedio of “the pain and impotence” she feels seeing her partner in that situation, which she considers “an injustice”. She is also worried because Díaz Alonso “suffers from kidney disease”, and she fears that his body “will not react very well”.

The prison director himself called relatives to convince him to stop the hunger strike. Thus, Sánchez was able to see her husband this Wednesday. “His state of health is very delicate,” warns this 23-year-old, who says that the prisoner’s mother, who accompanied her, “became very upset” when she saw him: “He is skinny, his face had no color and she felt faint when she saw the state he was in, she urged him to drink a bit of water, and he accepted”. continue reading

Díaz Alonso told his wife that they had him in a “punishment cell” but that several days after he started the strike, they transferred him to the infirmary because his health had deteriorated

Díaz Alonso told his wife that they had him in a “punishment cell” but that several days after he started the strike, they transferred him to the infirmary because his health had deteriorated.

According to her account, they promised him that this Thursday someone from the Prosecutor’s Office would visit the prisoner”, supposedly, for him to put forward his situation”.

Although the trial was held in December, he did not receive his sentence until January 29^th. The family was unable to get a hold of the judgement until days later, on February 3^rd, which prevented them from appealing. “As far as the Military Prosecutor’s Office, we only had five days”, explains his wife, who complains that the papers arrived late and they were not even notified of the sanction by phone.

The trial, denounces Mercedes Sánchez, “was the worst, they even presented manipulated photos”. The woman says that “only one witness accused him, and he was associated with the police” and that in the only video presented in the trial as incriminating evidence, he “is not shown throwing rocks at anything”, but “standing on a corner”.

Díaz Alonso’s lawyer, continues his wife, argued at the trial that her client “has mental retardation problems”, but far from taking it into account, “they made up many things, and made him look as if he were the worst offender”.

“They said they had made inquiries around the neighborhood, but no official ever went there to do anything”, she continues, “they just made up a circus of lies”. Lies, she laments, “made up by them, as they have done with all the prisoners of 11J, just to find reasons to condemn them”.

“They said they had made inquiries around the neighborhood, but no official ever went there to do anything”, she continues, they just made up a circus of lies”

Her 33-year-old husband was sentenced, along with eight other people: Daniel Joel Cárdenas Díaz (sentenced to 15 years), Leidiana Prohía Guevara (12 years), José Carlos Hernández Barrio (14 years), Yoniel Santana Rodríguez (10 years), José Antonio Cue Monzón (10 years), Enoc Noé Fernández Fernández (10 years), Yasniel Roque Valle (5 years) and Jorge Luis Argüelles Bayate (15 years), who was also charged with robbery with violence.

Three other defendants were not sentenced for sabotage, but for other alleged serious crimes: Alain Roselló Fernández (7 years for robbery with force and public disorder), Jorge Gilberto Carrillo Isaac (6 years for robbery with force) and Reydel Canasí Reyes (7 years for attack and public disorder).

The case of Daniel Joel Cárdenas Díaz, 34, is especially dramatic, since he was also injured during his arrest. The images of that moment, precariously recorded, spread like wildfire on social networks and, ultimately, served the regime to try to discredit him.

On the other hand, another 11J prisoner, William Manuel Leyva Pupo, has also been on an “indefinite” hunger strike since Tuesday. The young man from Holguín, 21 years old and sentenced to 12 years for the crime of “sedition”, sent a telephone message from prison declaring himself a “peaceful dissident” and “arbitrarily in prison”, and argues that he prefers to die before to continue suffering what he calls “subhuman and degrading psychological torture” imposed by the regime on all the July 11 protesters.

Leyva Pupo was already “plantado*” on a previous occasion, just when his trial was held, last January, along with nine other prisoners, in protest about the high prison sentences requested for them by the Prosecutor’s Office. For Leyva Pupo they asked for 18 years, which was reduced to 12 in the final sentence, received this February.

Also on a hunger strike, but without trial and for more than a month, is Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara. The artist, leader of the San Isidro Movement, was arrested on July 11^th, but not for demonstrating, but for a previously charged cause, the same one for which singer Maykel Castillo Osorbo remains in prison. During a party on April 4^th on Damas Street, in Old Havana, in which activists and local residents sang the song Patria y Vida [Homeland and Life], the police tried to arbitrarily arrest Osorbo, but he refused to get in the patrol car.

*Translator’s note: *Translator’s note: A ’plantado’ — literally ’planted’ — is a term with a long history in Cuba and is used to describe a political prisoner who refuses to cooperate in any way with their incarceration.

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Silence in Front of the Russian and Ukrainian Embassies in Cuba, Separated by 400 Meters

Diplomatic headquarters of Ukraine located on Fifth Avenue, in the municipality of Playa, Havana. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 24 February 2022 — “No to war” and “Fascist Putin” are some of the cries that are chanted on this day in front of Russian embassies around the world to condemn the invasion of Ukraine that began at dawn this Thursday. This is not the case in Havana. The area around the emblematic diplomatic headquarters look deserted, nobody with a loudspeaker or a poster, nobody condemning the war that has begun.

Nor is there a single Cuban offering messages of support in front of the Ukrainian diplomatic headquarters, on Fifth Avenue, about four hundred meters from the Russian one. Located in an area where almost all the houses are embassies or state institutions, a highly guarded place with few neighbors, the house was totally closed this Thursday and nobody was seen around, not even the guards.

The reaction in countries like Poland, the United States, Germany, Spain and France was immediate, hundreds of citizens took to the streets early in the morning asking Vladimir Putin to put an end to the attacks. Some exiled Cubans were present at the protest at the Russian embassies in Madrid and Paris. A hundred Ukrainians gathered there since morning. Something similar happened at the consulate of that country in Barcelona.

The same scene was repeated at the gates of the Russian Embassy in Rome, where the demonstrators had banners denouncing the military action and Vladimir Putin, promoter of the war.

Also in Prague and other Czech cities a series of demonstrations have taken place in front of the Embassy of the Russian Federation to show support for Ukraine and, in addition, another one was announced for this Friday in Wenceslas Square with the slogan: enough war in Ukraine.

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‘With the Veto Against Anamely Ramos, the Message is Very Clear: No Cuban is Safe’

Anamely Ramos is curator and member of the San Isidro Movement. (Twitter/@MarioJPenton)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 16 February 2022 — Experts consulted by 14ymedio have found no precedent for the government to have vetoed the entry of a Cuban citizen residing in Cuba, as happened this Wednesday with the art curator and activist Anamely Ramos, who was unable to board her American Airlines flight bound for Havana.

The director of the Miami airport, with whom Ramos met after expressing her intention to stay at the terminal if she was not allowed to travel to Cuba, assured the media gathered at the scene that it is the first time he has encountered such a case.

Lawyer Eloy Viera recalls, in statements to 14ymedio, that other Cubans went through a similar situation, but the “particularity” in this case is that Anamely Ramos “has not lost her rights, because she has not been outside of Cuba for more than 24 months.”

Cuban law establishes that if a national remains outside the country continuously for more than two years, he loses his residence and, with it, he also loses his rights, such as voting or medical assistance. Many émigrés have been prevented from entering the country for this reason. continue reading

“I’ll go to a public place and will camp out, because I don’t have a home right now, I don’t have a country. I’m not going to anyone’s house who wants to take me in, nor do I want to ask for asylum”

However, the case of Anamely Ramos is different, since she has not lost her rights. The decision to veto her entry in Cuba is clearly a “repressive” act that sends “a very clear political message: no Cuban is safe and, once she leaves, her return to Cuba can be prevented.”

“There is a rupture in what has happened with Anamely,” he argues, because “she has no other place to legally regularize herself and her only legal foothold was Cuba. Even so, they decided to deny her entry.”

In this regard, the lawyer mentions the case of the activist Lidier Hernández Sotolongo, a Cuban resident in Uruguay, who was not prevented from entering, but who was regulated once he was in Cuba. And precisely, he points out, “one of the arguments used by officials in that case was that legal Cuban residents could not be prevented from entering but they could be prevented from leaving.”

After a meeting with Miami airport authorities and with American Airlines employees, Ramos reiterated that her interest was to stay at the airport to “apply pressure.” However, the director himself warned her that this was not allowed and accompanied her to a meeting with immigration authorities.

“They have treated me very well,” the activist acknowledged in a direct broadcast. “I’ll go to a public place and will camp out, because I don’t have a home right now, I don’t have a country. I’m not going to anyone’s house who wants to take me in, nor do I want to ask for asylum.”

In a live broadcast on her Facebook profile, she explained that the airline did not specify the reasons why the regime had denied her entry, and that they simply told her that “there is a protocol with Cuba and with all the countries of the world” that they “have to abide by.”

The fact that Ramos complied with all the legal and health requirements to re-enter Cuba suggests that the Cuban government activated Article 24 of the Migration Law. This limits the entry into the national territory to “every person” who, among other activities that are considered illegal, organizes, stimulates, carries out or participates in “hostile actions against the political, economic and social foundations of the Cuban State.”

This article establishes other assumptions, such as “National Defense and Security reasons” or “being declared undesirable or expelled.”

“Cuba’s border has to continue to be in Cuba,” she said. “It cannot be at the American Airlines gate, that is inadmissible”

This Cuban norm violates the Universal Declaration of Human Rights in its Article 13, which recognizes the right “to move freely and choose one’s residence in the territory of a State” and “to leave any country, including one’s own, and to return to one’s country.”

For Viera, Article 24 is a mechanism “that increases the administrative discretion the regime” has, when deciding “without the need to substantiate or notify” the affected person. “The fundamental problem with this is that the decision is made behind people’s backs. They only find out if they are about to board a plane to Cuba. They are overseas without the administrative authorities having notified them through a resolution or a document that they could use at a later date in a judicial environment,” he added.

In addition, he believes that it is “outrageous from any legal point of view” even from the way the article is written. “The term used is ‘undesirable.’ Who wishes that a person may access Cuba, who is that authority, under what criteria?” questions Viera, who assures that this way of formulating “what it does is favor arbitrariness and the discretionary, and generate defenselessness in the person who suffers it and has no way to fight it.”

In statements to the press gathered at the international terminal, Ramos denounced the attitude of the airline. “Cuba’s border has to continue to be in Cuba,” he said. “It cannot be located at the American Airlines gate. That’s inadmissible.”

This Wednesday afternoon, Ramos left the airport and explained that, according to the regulations, “nobody can stay who is not going to board a plane” and American Airlines maintains its decision not to let her board a flight to Cuba. “I will continue the protest in a public space, in front of the Versailles [restaurant]. This is to be continued. My demand continues to be that my #RightToReturn be respected.”

Translated by Norma Whiting

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Rebound of Covid-19 in Cuba Forces a Postponement of Havana Book Fair

Image taken at the Rosario Castellanos bookstore, located in Mexico City, in October 2021, when it was reported that Mexico is the Guest of Honor Country for the Havana Book Fair. (Government of Mexico)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 23 January 2022 — Cuba’s Ministry of Culture has postponed the Havana International Book Fair to the month of April, due to the rebound of covid-19 on the Island since the arrival of the omicron variant. The thirtieth edition of the event has had to be postponed according to institutional sources.

“The measure responds to the epidemiological situation facing the region, where the largest number of visitors to this cultural event come from each year. Related to this, it has been taken into account that this important event is the one with the largest popular attendance of those sponsored by Cuba’s cultural institutions,” the note points out.

It also explains that the postponement was made in response to a proposal from the Cuban Book Institute.

This year, Mexico is the Guest of Honor Country and the original dates announced were February 10 to 20. With the change in date, the dates for the book fairs in all the provinces of the country will also be changed.

At the close of this Friday, January 21, Cuba there were 3,401 new cases of covid-19 and five deaths, as detailed this Saturday by the Ministry of Health in its daily report. A week ago the country exceeded one million cases of coronavirus since the first contagion was detected in March 2020. continue reading

In November, given the improvement in the epidemiological situation, schools were reopened and international tourism, a key sector for the economy, was reactivated. Some services were also reactivated and cultural activities in cinemas and theaters resumed. However, in recent weeks some events have had to be canceled or postponed.

The National Meeting of Troubadours Longina Canta a Corona also postponed its twenty-fifth edition due to the current incidence of the pandemic. The event was scheduled for January 6 to 9, but all face-to-face activities were postponed until further notice.

According to official data, more than 87% of the country’s total population — 11.2 million inhabitants — have received the complete schedule of three doses of one of the three Cuban-made vaccines against covid-19: Abdala, Soberana 02 and Sovereign Plus.

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Protesters’ Trials in Cuba: ‘Black Berets, Red Berets, It’s Like They’re Going to Bring in Bin Laden’

Justice 11j has denounced that in the trials carried out to date, one of the repressive patterns is the police operations at the courthouses. (Santa Clara Court/Saily Gonzalez)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 25 January 2022 — Despite the harassment to which they are subjected by State Security and the strong operations at the doors of the courts where the July 11 protesters are being judged, many of their relatives have made it clear that they will not stop asking for justice in loud voices. One of them is Marta Perdomo, the mother of Nadir and Jorge Martín Perdomo, whose trial began this Tuesday in Quivicán, Mayabeque.

“This is full of red berets, black berets, State Security agents and police, as if they were going to bring Bin Laden,” the woman told 14ymedio outside the municipal court, moments before an officer snatched her cell phone from her hands. “Yeah, they’re going to take my phone away, so I can’t do anything else,” she managed to say.

Perdomo is one of those who have joined the initiative proposed by several activists to carry out cacerolazos — protest by banging on pots and pans — and broadcast them on social networks in support of political prisoners. “My children are innocent, I ask for freedom for my children,” the woman cries out in a video as she beats on a pot.

Nadir and Jorge Martín are the only defendants in that trial, and they face, respectively, eight and ten years in prison. “Jorge is accused of double contempt while Nadir is accused of attack,” explains his mother, insisting that these are “fabricated accusations.”

Perdomo expected to see her children enter the building, but it was not possible. According to what another close relative told this newspaper, “no one could see the kids from afar,” because “the truck turned the corner and they took them in the back way.” continue reading

In the week of January 24 to 28, the authorities have scheduled four trials in the provinces of Havana, Mayabeque and Matanzas. “Thirty-nine protesters will be tried for the crimes of sedition, sabotage, public disorder, contempt, assault and sexual assault,” the Justice 11J platform summarized on its Facebook page .

Among those to be tried is the musician Abel González Lescay, who is facing the weight of the prosecutor’s request for seven years in prison.

The siege of family and friends who wanted to approach the courts has been the trend in these trials. In regards to them, the Attorney General’s Office published a statement on Monday to justify itself, saying that the accusation of sedition for the protesters – the main reason why some face sentences of up to 30 years – is for “attacking the socialist state.”

On Tuesday, Michael Valladares, husband of the writer and political prisoner Maria Cristina Garrido, another of the 11J detainees, denounced that he was preparing to give his support to Marta Perdomo outside the court, but State Security did not allow it. “The place is full of State Security agents,” he tells 14ymedio. “There are about four blocked blocks, full of soldiers, and 100 meters away there is a cordon. They threatened me with a fine and that they would arrest me if I insisted on going through.”

The scenario was similar this Monday in Matanzas, where the opponent Félix Navarro and his daughter, Saily Navarro, are being tried, among other detainees, according to Annia Zamora, mother of the Lady in White Sissi Abascal, who also participated in the protests and who was sentenced to six years’ imprisonment.

“Yesterday they did not allow us to leave the town of Carlos Rojas, there is a strong operation,” said Zamora, who also said that the trial was prolonged, and that at seven o’clock at night “they were still in court, with the accused sitting on the bench.” For her, it is something “incredible” that even at that time they wanted to continue the trial. “A lawyer from the neighboring province of Mayabeque said no, that she had to return home” and they stopped until today when they have resumed,” she explained.

Zamora denounces that she has suffered this harassment since Sunday. That day, she says that she and her husband were arrested when they were leaving to go to mass. Taken to the Jovellanos police unit, they were kept until seven at night. “They are violating all our rights for only wanting to go to mass to pray and ask for the freedom of our political prisoners,” she protests.

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‘Many in Cuba Haven’t Even Heard About the Hundreds of Political Prisoners’

The musician Abel González Lescay, one of those prosecuted for 11J. (14ymedio)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 25 January 2022 — When his trial was postponed in December, Cuban artist Abel González Lescay, arrested after demonstrating peacefully on July 11 in Bejucal, Mayabeque, thought he would end up being released. Paradoxically, that seemed to him “bad news,” because it could, in his opinion, “overshadow” the denunciation of the rest of the prisoners and those sentenced for the protests.

But that his process would be dismissed was an illusion. The young musician, a second-year student at the University of the Arts in Havana, currently under house arrest after spending a week in detention in July, will be tried this Wednesday in San José de las Lajas. Before that municipal court he has summoned to gather, that day, “everyone who wants to demand justice for Cuban dissidents.”

“We must not stop expressing ourselves at such a serious moment for the Cuban nation,” he wrote on the networks, hoping that his trial could “mark a turning point in the future of this horrible story.”

In a conversation with 14ymedio, Lescay says that despite the fact that “there is a movement in support of political prisoners that is growing quite a bit,” it is a minority phenomenon, and that “if you go out into the streets and talk to people,” there are few who at this moment who are aware of the prisoners. “Many haven’t even heard of the hundreds of political prisoners,” he laments.

The artist faces a sentence of seven years in prison (according to his file, three years for “public disorder”, three years for “aggravated contempt of a continuing nature” and one year and six months for “contempt of the basic figure of a continuing nature”). The Justice 11J platform, which keeps a record of those arrested, imprisoned and convicted of the demonstrations, has confirmed what the musician suffered when he was arrested on July 12: “They took him out of his house naked, humiliated him and beat him.” continue reading

“When they took me out of my house, it was done by some policemen who did not have an arrest warrant or anything,” he tells this newspaper. “They forced me into a car without telling me where we were going.”

The six days he spent behind bars the young man remembers as “a rare experience,” in which he suffered “many injustices” that he tried to take in the best way, “as a spiritual retreat,” as a means of survival.

“To say what was the worst thing that happened in prison is complex because it is something compact, one thing feeds the other,” he argues. “It’s not just that the head of the prison wanted to kill me and that in front of all the prisoners he shouted that he’s going to kill me: it’s a guy who’s injecting something into your shoulder without you wanting him to, and you don’t even see the person’s face. He comes with the syringe and puts it in your shoulder while telling you that it’s obligatory and that’s it.”

And he continues listing horrors: “It’s that when you turn on the faucet, the water that comes out is disgusting, you have coronavirus and there is no doctor to see you. Being locked up for four days without talking to anyone, sick and without medical assistance is torture.”

After being released, on July 18, “complicated” days arrived. “It’s ugly what happens in prison, and then on the street you continue for a while feeling as if you’ve been poisoned,” he says. Those days he was very nervous: if, for example, someone parked a car in front of his house, he would run to the window to see what it was about. “I remember that one day I was walking down the street and I saw the moment when they picked up three kids and punched them as they put them in a police car. When I saw them, their whole faces were deformed.”

Despite everything, he is proud to have taken to the streets that Sunday. Since the “events in San Isidro,” he explains, referring to the hunger strike of the MSI artists in November 2020 to ask for the freedom of the anti-establishment rapper Denis Solís, “I was already wanting to do something.” He was not at the artists’ sit-in on November 27, 2020 before the Ministry of Culture “because he was far away,” and he felt “very powerless” that day.

For this reason, on July 11 in Bejucal, after seeing online what was happening in San Antonio de los Baños and Havana, the young man did not think twice.

“I saw that the people who were in the street were my buddies and that there were thousands of people, and I went out into the street,” he recalls, “to unload, to shout freedom.” And he continues: “People went out on the street, for the first time in their lives, to express what they felt. The situation was serious at that time, they gave us electricity for only four or five hours a day in the middle of the quarantine, and the covid was going up every day, with new cases. There was no way not to go out on the street. “

For Lescay, almost all of the 11J protesters are in disagreement “with the things that are happening in Cuba politically.”

A shocking moment for him was when he found out about the prosecutor’s request, in October, when he thought the worst was over. “I had to get serious not to succumb,” he narrates. “When they tell you something like that, reality is destroyed, because six months, a year, is one thing something that one can even endure… but seven years? When I looked ahead and calculated that I would come out of prison at age 30, it was very hard.

In the meantime, however, he has tried to get on with his daily life. “They haven’t told me anything else since I got out on July 18, not how I have to behave nor what I have to do,” he says, surprised. “I am under house arrest, but they have not told me to go sign any paper that follows up that I am complying with the measure, and they have not summoned me either.”

He hasn’t had any problems at the university either. In fact, he says, when he started this semester he went to talk to the rector, who referred to him as “a talented student” and even gave him psychological help to recover from the impact of those days he spent in prison.

This Wednesday, together with Lescay and also Bejucal, they will process six other detainees, four of them “very young,” between 17 and 21: Ángel Miguel Martín Caro, Jorge Luis Reynoso Barrios, Omar Valenciano Donatien, Raúl Xavier Díaz Pérez, Alain Yamil Sánchez Baluja and Livan Viel de la Peña. Regarding them, whose cases are not as visible as his, he insists on drawing attention: “It is useless for me to ask people to go to my trial to pressure them to release me, but not the others, nor does it helps me to keep my mouth shut and try to go to trial waiting for them to shake my hand.”

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Cuban State Security Evicts Journalist Yadiris Fuentes from Her Home

Yadiris Fuentes is a reporter for ADN Cuba. (Julio Llopiz-Casal)

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 22 January 2021 — Serious threats from Cuban State Security are forcing independent journalist Yadiris Fuentes to, in a few days, move out of the home she’s lived in since June 2021. The owner of the home was warned by political police that if he did not evict her, he could face a fine or even lose his property, which is an illegal rental.

As Fuentes told 14ymedio, she will only be able to remain in the home until February 5th, the last day through which her rent is pre-paid. “Since the state of siege we all had around November (stemming from the announcement made by Archipiélago) they had not bothered me anymore, they had not called me nor seen me,” she explained.

“On Monday, January 17th I was not home, but Manuel called my cell phone, the agent who ’takes care of me’,” says Fuentes, who for years lived in Cienfuegos although she is originally from Pinar del Río. The official told her he wanted to see her in two days, last Wednesday, in the afternoon. “Summon me, if you want to see me, summon me,” she replied.

The ADN Cuba reporter let the Security agent know that she refused to respond to verbal summons and to date, she has not received an official document to appear before the authorities; thus, she believes the objective of the political police “was to intimidate and that, perhaps, to them, the rental thing is enough” harassment. continue reading

“The day after that call, my landlord informed me that State Security went to see him and told him that, ’either he evicts me, or they would fine him 15,000 pesos’ and that they could confiscate his house. Obviously, I will not subject anyone to live under that pressure and I said if that is how it is, I’d leave on February 5th,” she declared.

Fuentes assures us that these pressures to leave her without a place to live will not divert her from her profession, “This won’t influence anything I do as a journalist but while I concentrate on where to live, obviously I cannot work in the same way and they know that and I believe that is part of the method.”

The reporter stated that this type of pressure has been seen before and that her case “is not extraordinary nor unique… It is a technique they’ve already used a lot, especially against women, as if they view us as weaker and more susceptible to pressure.” Among the independent reporters who have suffered this type of pressure so they’d lose their rentals is Camila Acosta, a contributor to the online news portal CubaNet.

Faced with this dilemma, she says, “A friend always appears,” who can take her in for a few days while she finds a place to live, but she insists that she will try “not exploit these avenues” because she does not like “to be bothering anyone nor subjecting them to the pressure from State Security.”

“Right now, finding a rental is super difficult. There was a time when Havana was the easiest place to find one because there were several channels for finding them but right now, for example on Revolico, the online platform for buyers and sellers, there are very few options. Most of the ads are for people looking for rentals,” she says.

According to her experience, looking for options these days, she’s noticed that prices “have increased a lot” and that right now “everything is above 7,000 or 9,000 pesos,” (between 280 and 360 dollars, according to the official exchange rate), and when she communicates with the owners, they inform her that they are already taken.

The independent reporter is aware that what she is experiencing “is a cyclical story,” and that wherever she lives they can, once again, pressure her landlords, even if the rental is legal.

This scene has served as motivation for a group of independent Cuban female journalists to launch the Casa Palanca campaign, with the goal of fundraising to acquire a property. With the initiative, shared on Verkami, the activists and reporters want to create a network “of linkages, protection, and emotional and psychological support.”

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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Ten July 11th Prisoners in Holguin, Cuba Begin Hunger Strike Protesting the Sentences Sought by the Prosecutor

Police deployed outside the tribunal in Santa Clara where, this week, July 11th (11J) protesters were tried.

14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 15 January 2022 — Ten prisoners in Holguín, for whom the prosecutor maintained its request for very high sentences went on a hunger strike following their trial for the July 11th (11J) protests. This was reported by Dr. Alejandro Raúl Pupo Casas on his social media, alerted by the mother of one of the defendants, William Manuel Leyva Pupo, a relative of the doctor.

For this 20-year-old, the prosecutor sought 18 years, and the same for Reymundo Fernandez Rodríguez, Jorge Luis Martínez García, Marcos Antonio Pintueles Marrero and Yoel Ricardo Sánchez Borjas.

The same source warned that the prisoners’ families will join their protest, although she did not name the other prisoners who were on hunger strike.

The sentences will be officially handed down on February 11, according to messages shared on Facebook by family members of the accused, and they all take for granted that the judges will bend to the prosecutors’ requests, as is usually the case in political trials. continue reading

Three other trials for 11J also ended on Friday in Santa Clara, Havana, and Mayabeque.

In this city, the news agency Efe reports that according to family members of the prisoners, a trial was held without the families’ prior knowledge.

For now, we know that in Holguín is where they requested the harshest sentences for July 11th protesters accused of “sedition”. Prosecutor Fernando Valentín Sera Planas–included on the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba’s list of oppressors along with dozens of his colleagues–sought 30 years in prison for Miguel Cabrera Rojas, Yosvany Rosell García Caso, José Ramón Solano Randiche and Iván Colón Suárez for the crime of sedition; 28 years for Maikel Rodríguez del Campo and Mario Josué Prieto Ricardo; 25 for Cruz García Domínguez, Miguel Enrique Girón Velázquez and Yasmany Crespo Hernández, and 22 for Yoirdan Revolta Leyva.

The only woman facing such high penalties in Holguín is Jessica Lisbeth Torres Calvo, for whom they are seeking 27 years, the same as her current age.

We are also aware of four minors tried for the same crime–Yeral Michel Palacios Román, Ernesto Abelardo Martínez Pérez, Ayan Idalberto Jover Cardosa and Keyla Roxana Mulet Calderón–the original request of 15 years was reduced to between five and seven years.

During the last day of the trials, State Security stepped up its harassment of the prisoners’ friends and family who have publicly protested.

In Santa Clara, where 16 protesters were tried, activist Saily González was detained for several hours, as were family members of Andy García Lorenzo, arrested in the morning, they were heading to the tribunal, as they did every day since the start of the trial on Monday.

According to sources close to Saily González, her arrest occurred when she was headed to present a writ of habeas corpus on behalf of García Lorenzo’s family. All of their phones were confiscated and they were each assessed a fine of 3,000 pesos. “She was very agitated, crying, they took her phone, the hard drive on which she had the habeas corpus document, her earphones. Now neither she nor Andy García’s family has a way to communicate,” reported activist Víctor Arias, whom González visited following her release at 7 pm sharp.

Arias also confirmed that Andy García’s sister, Roxana, and her partner Jonathan López were released, but he alerted that his father, Pedro López, “left the interrogation and there is still no news from him.”

Andy García’s family has been one of the most active in denouncing the irregularities of the trials in which, they assure, the prosecution’s witnesses lie. According to Tayri Lorenzo, the young man’s mother, in the courtroom in Santa Clara one of them said that State Security negotiated a fine for him in exchange for his testimony to implicate the accused.

They are not the only ones suffering harassment by the political police. Yudinela Castro, the mother of Rowland Castillo, a 17-year-old accused of “sedition” and for whom the prosecutor seeks 23 years of deprivation of liberty for participating in the 11J protests in Havana, told 14ymedio that State Security has been pressuring her not to denounce her son’s situation.

“Yesterday I received a summons, I was not at home but they called my phone and left it under my door. It was around midnight,” she said. She was so bothered to see that paper as she arrived home, that she ripped it up.

The civilian agents who identified themselves as Ignacio and Elías, she continued, always tell her they are going to accuse her of “contempt or sedition” for what she posts on social media and the declarations she has made to the press. “They tell me I am associated with terrorists and counterrevolutionaries.”

Castillo, incarcerated in Occidente’s Juvenile Prison in El Guatao, is from Mantilla and the Sunday of the protests, he was arrested on the corner of Toyo in the municipality of Diez de Octubre, one of the epicenters of the protests and a place where a patrol car was overturned.

Translated by: Silvia Suárez

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