From a Leader to a Director, From a Director to a Functionary / Regina Coyula

A long line of customers stretches outside a Western Union office in Havana. (14ymedio)

Regina Coyula, 20 April 2018 — The new president takes office with the backing of Raul Castro, but the advanced ages of the so-called “historical leaders” make that support very volatile and Diaz-Canel must create his own alliances beyond those he inherited, in order to govern a country filled with problems.

In spite of yesterday’s speeches, and in spite of Diaz-Canel, of Raul Castro and of the rest of the 603 deputies, the economy must be put ahead of the ideological cart now that there is nothing left of the “Maximum Leader” except his ashes.

And since they proclaim themselves so irreversibly socialist, they should study, review and analyze what Marx wrote on the issue. And if all this is tedious and old, get in line: at a market, a pharmacy, a bus stop — opportunities abound — and pay attention.

Internet from the Shore / Regina Coyula

Regina Coyula, 16 March 2018 — (Text published in the bulletin of the 2018 Internet Freedom Festival) Cell phones have been used commercially in the world since 1995, but we Cubans couldn’t have our own cell phones until 2009. Internet access through prepaid cards in public places dates from 2015. In Cuba, the year 2017 will be remembered for the introduction of 3G technology and access to the Internet for the first time from home via ADSL-fixed telephone lines.

The only telecommunications business that operates in the country announces an increase in access, but it comes at the cost of high prices, censorship of pages critical of the Government and self-censorship, with the user suspecting that all navigation is traceable. continue reading

I learned about the Internet in 2009, during a trip to Spain, and it was love at first sight. When I went back to Cuba, I decided to open a blog, and I asked my neighbor, the blogger Yoani Sánchez, for help. I spent months posting blindly thanks to friends abroad who uploaded the contents from content I emailed to them.

My first time on the Internet in Cuba, I wasted a prepaid card that gave me an hour of connection from a hotel, since I was so nervous and inept that I forgot the password and spent an hour of virtual onanism rereading my posts, discovering the comments…and nothing more.

I had to learn how to swim in those waters, as they say. I had to “empower myself” to be not just someone who reads email and opens a page on Facebook. Studying came to me easily because it encourages the illusion that I’m not getting Alzheimer’s like I feel with my son (I have to say that I came to motherhood late) when we’re discussing applications and programs.

And together with this familiarity that I established with the Internet, I became conscious that it’s a tool that is too powerful to be left in the hands of governments and/or businesses. As a Cuban, I feel that they have denied us entrance into the 21st century, that this digital divide is difficult to remedy and is even more serious in a literate population with a high rate of middle and higher education, which, in addition, is growing old.

We can’t blame our technological backwardness on the Blockade-Embargo (what it’s called varies according to one’s viewpoint) alone or to the long dispute between the governments of Cuba and the United States, although it has its part.

Beyond the material limitations that it supposes, there exists a domestic political will to keep us isolated and uninformed. José Martí, our greatest thinker, said it simply: “Don’t believe; read,” but we Cubans don’t want to be spoon-fed bits of information seasoned by the governmental point of view. That day when I forgot my password, I decided not only to swim, but also to help others who look out from the shore.

Translated by Regina Anavy

The Eye: Data / Regina Coyula

Regina Coyula, 16 January 2018 — During the World Internet Governance Forum held in Geneva at the end of December 2017, my curiosity was raised that the word most mentioned in the different forums was “data.”

The term Big Data has been increasingly pervasive among the multiple stakeholders in Internet Governance. Since the English mathematician Clive Dumby, in 2006, launched the phrase that is associated with the data boom: “Data is the new oil,” this new oil, unlike the organic one, has only grown exponentially, and is a “renewable” resource. continue reading

Impossible to give shape without complex programs and powerful processors, so that this enormous amount of information is usable; To make these data really valuable, what is known as the 4V rule must be fulfilled: Volume, Speed, Variety, Veracity, which are explained by themselves.

According to the most widespread idea, it is about the data generated by social networks as a whole; however, these data represent a small amount of the global volume, but they are the data that allow profiles to be drawn up, and which may end up violating the right to privacy, as has already been demonstrated.

Something as widespread and everyday as the mobile phone, even with the data turned off, is a transmitting source and, by triangulating the antennas, can constantly announce its geographical locatio. A TED conference offers an interesting perspective on this.

Cases like that of Dumby that became a millionaire creating brand loyalty through the expert handling of Big Data to know tastes and trends, have motivated many to create their own ventures with data analysis.

For others, studying this information can predict droughts and prevent famines; it can improve the life of the citizen by optimizing administrative management in what is known as Open Goverment; or it can be decisive in clinical diagnosis. This is, let’s say, the friendly area of Big Data, because in its darkest side, in the hands of companies and/or unscrupulous governments, what can not be deduced about the private life of individuals?

In many countries, these databases have been opened to encourage entrepreneurship and innovation and as a sign of transparency. But as, in Cuba, we can not wait for that opening by a secretive government par excellence, the care of the data is an individual responsibility. What we share on social networks, what we say on the phone, the content of our correspondence, both traditional and electronic.

And if we want more privacy, leave the cell phone at home.

Intellectual Property in Cuba: Reprint, Reeducate, Reinsert, Rethink / Regina Coyula

Cuba’s Higher Institute of Art (ISA). (Source: notesfromthewest.wordpress.com)

Regina Coyula, 8 December 2017 — According to the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), intellectual property is “any property that, by mutual agreement, is considered to be of an intellectual nature and worthy of protection, including scientific and technological inventions, literary or artistic productions, trademarks and distinctive signs, industrial designs and geographical indications.”

The protection umbrella covers both the most traditional works and those associated with new technologies: multimedia productions, databases or computer programs. It is assumed that the protection of copyright encourages creativity and favors cultural and social development. The absolute character of this assertion is stubbornly defended by those who defend free culture. continue reading

We will leave aside trademarks, patents and everything related to the protection of industrial property to place the focus on the artistic creation protected by copyright. In particular, we will look at the way in which this creation is disseminated and/or shared, as this is a current issue that has peculiar characteristics in Cuba.

Cuba is a signatory to the Berne Convention amended in 1979. The Cuban copyright law dates back to 1977 with modifications through decree-laws that continue into the first years of the past decade. Intellectual property and copyright issues are taught not only in the School of Law, but in the Higher Institute of Art (ISA), the Higher Institute of International Relations (ISRI) and the School of Social Communication. The updating of the law is an imperative to adapt it to the changes of the digital age.

In practice, there is an exemplary zeal for the protection of Cuban intellectual property in the international arena, which contrasts with the laxness in respecting the intellectual property of others that has prevailed within our borders.

Restrictions on access to quality information in the scientific-technical field meant that in the 60’s publications such as Scientific AmericanScience or Science & Vie were reproduced without consultation to be sent to the archives of the documentation centers of different organs of the State including its education and research centers.

In the 80s, with the rise of videos in Betamax format, now obsolete, Omnivideo, a company affiliated with the CIMEX Corporation, sold unauthorized copies of film in hard currency stores. On the other hand, it is usual practice for Cuban television to reproduce materials while hiding the logo of the channel from which they were taken.

All these practices have tried to justify themselves ethically with the argument of “breaking the blockade,” but leave out the deeper discussion that reveals the illogical contrasts already discussed. Copyright is not only the protection of the right of the owners, it is also the creation of a favorable scenario for art, knowledge, science and culture to circulate. The legal framework should reflect that balance, a only then can a society exploit and take advantage of technological advances.

The rights of copyright holders and the fight against piracy

There are many groups that defend piracy for having been the instrument for knowledge, culture and science to be democratized. It is argued that the United States only became protective of copyright when it developed its own cultural industries after having widely pirated British works.

However, during the last decades, international treaties reflect a protectionist regulatory trend that pressures countries to strengthen their legal protection mechanisms. As Cuba enters into the logic of the market economy, record sellers, who fill their devices with all kinds of material protected by copyright, will be up against the awareness that they are encouraging an illegal activity.

It is important to recognize that, as in most underdeveloped economies, pirated discs and other digital media, both outside legal distribution networks, continue to be the largest form of access to recorded music and movies.

While the prices of legitimate CDs of Cuban music vary between 15 and 25 convertible pesos, the same CD in an alternative market costs no more than three. In the Cuban case, the knowledge of how The Weekly Packet works and is distributed , serves to understand the internal dynamics.

The internet is practically non-existent in Cuban society. Few people can have a home connection and public ones are irregular and still very expensive. This favors the coexistence of recorded discs, USB memories and portable discs due to the high number of CD/DVD players that still exist in the country.

Everything points to the fact that this model must change. If bilateral relations with the United States are regularized and/or the trade embargo laws against Cuba are weakened, the unrestricted use of protected material is put into perspective.

Those who manage the aforementioned Weekly Package, increasingly, have been including commercial advertising from the island’s the emerging private sector. This could allow them a relatively smooth fall when it becomes a punishable offense to transfer products protected by copyright, giving them the option of converting into cpmpanies supported by companies.

For those who sell discs, the road will be different. The desire to legitimize will generate initiatives such as agreements with local artists to function as distributors of their material. Thus they may become like their peers in Ecuador or Bolivia, former sellers of pirated production, many of whom reconverted due to the joint effort of the interested institutions and the Government, thus becoming merchants that pay taxes and pay national artists for sales. As a result, the costs of music CDs have been lowered and there is support for the promotion of the national market and a legal status of the vendor, previously nonexistent.

Cuba must start thinking about the transition. How can an internal market be supported by keeping the jobs and income that are being created and allowing the owners to receive income from the exploitation of their work? This is the commercial edge.

However, as in the rest of the countries, no legislation could foresee the change that the popularization of the information and knowledge through the Internet would bring, with both the positive and negative aspects it would entail. It is inevitable to rethink this given the new way in which information travels, while the right to access protected content is permeating popular consciousness.

Free Culture

The spread of knowledge that uses digital technology where the cost of reproduction is close to zero, translates into a jump in the level of access to information and culture never before seen in a proportion never imagined. It is inevitable that people affect others and are affected by the opinions and knowledge that, in massive quantities, are shared in social networks, and in digital publications 2.0, where anyone can leave a comment.

The internet, but above all the philosophy of free software, have led to the appearance of categories such as copyleft (a word game xpressing the opposite of copyright), or Creative Commons, both related to free culture . The popular Wikipedia is a collaborative creation par excellence.

This ability of the Internet and digital technology to widely distribute content clashes with the central premise of copyright, which requires asking to ask permission to use it. In the search for legal mechanisms that allow people to take advantage of these characteristics, the philosophy of free software that rests on copyleft licenses and modifies the effect of the legal model of copyright is reasserted.

In copyleft licenses, ownership is used to grant very broad permits to other people in the use of the protected material with only one condition: if what is done with the material is to modify it for a derivative version, the license must be maintained in the new material, so that the broad reuse effect is perpetuated.

Inspired by these ideas, Creative Commons licenses emerged at the beginning of the 21st century, presented as a series of six licenses, a kind of menu from which creators can choose, giving more or less permission to reuse their work.

The development and promotion by the state by these open licenses that are associated with the idea of free culture promotes a series of initiatives where the commercial aspect is displaced. Instead, the role is to take advantage of technology to widely distribute the contents. For example, open educational resources, an initiative of important educational institutions to share all of their teaching materials endorsed by UNESCO, has been adopted by many academic institutions and promoted by governments such as those of Poland or the USA.

On the other hand, at the economic and political peripheries, in this arena, piracy has a very well established role as a development strategy that facilitates the circulation of knowledge goods. Piracy also has a clear political role as a counterweight to the centralized control of information, either by the State or by private interests.

The flexibilities of copyright, science and culture

The issue of the broadest access to protected works cannot be left only to the will of the people. Copyright, in its own architecture, has weights and counterweights. As a balance mechanism for the privileges of those who create works, the copyright rules provide that, once the term of protection expires, the works enter the public domain and the author can no longer control commercial exploitation (moral rights are perpetual). Thus, anyone can reuse the works without asking permission.

Additionally, during the term of protection (in Cuba it is 50 years), the law recognizes exceptional cases. Given conditions that are often very restrictive, people can reuse protected works without asking permission, because the knowledge and culture of society is considered to navigate through them. That is why works can be “quoted, parodied or used for academic purposes.”

International treaties have effectively generalized the protection of owners, but have left it up to the States to legislate exceptions. This has led, especially in developing countries, to lists that tend to be limited and very restrictive. Contrast, for example, the United States, where, beyond closed lists, there is an open clause that allows courts to use broader criteria to analyze if the use of a work without authorization of the owner can be considered as fair, and, therefore, does not violate the copyright.

As Cuba enters the international market, the pressures will be to comply with the protections. If it does not do so in balance with the right of people, there will be serious problems of access to knowledge, science and culture, as well as other rights. Cuban law has very little flexibility and does not even meet the needs of the pre-Internet age.

Let’s look at a single example to demonstrate the problem. It is usual in the laws of copyright to contemplate exceptions to use current news without it being considered a violation of copyright. The news media in the world reproduce, for example, the images of the last terrorist attack without fear of being sued by the local newscast that obtained them. This is not possible in Cuba and forces information providers into illegality. Current information is exceptional and any law must recognize its use beyond copyright.

In sum, the debates about the limits between sharing knowledge and protecting intellectual property have only just begun. Discussing, analyzing local effects and proposing a balanced legal framework is an obligation that can not be postponed by the interested parties in Cuba.

A Debt to Bogota / Regina Coyula

Regina Coyula, 25 April 2017 — I had thought of writing about the first impressions that Bogota has left me, impressions deepened by the contrast of a people so warm that they do not seem to carry the burden of six decades of violence. I had thought of writing about a city dominated by churches and bricks, of green mango with lemon and pepper, of the beautiful cadence they give to the Spanish language, even from the loathsome loudspeakers of industrious street vendors. Of that and more I thought to write as yesterday I walked along Seventh Street, full of families on bicycles or Sunday strollers.

But that was yesterday and today, Monday, I can see the details of the standoff in Venezuela, with its macabre stasis. I see Lilián Tintori denouncing the the Public Defender’s office. I see Maria Corina, enormous, confronting an arrest warrant. I see Venezuela without the filter of its state-run network, TeleSur. continue reading

I also saw confirmation that Karla Maria Perez, a young, talented student at the Central University of Las Villas, had been expelled from the school of journalism by her classmates. The reason? She was a member of Somos+, a political movement considered “illegal,” like every group not allied with the government.

On one hand, the Venezuelan people want to rescue democracy. On the other, they deviously send ahead a group of young people, fearful themselves of losing their future if they aren’t convinced. These young people of the Student University Federation who have been deprived of innocence with a cruel lesson, incapable of articulating a question about the disappearance of the bust of Mella in that postcommunist space that now is the Manzana Kempinski (formerly the Manzana Gómez).

No, Bogotá. I can’t write the chronicle that you would have deserved.

The Fear of ’14ymedio’

The author of the review of ‘Departure’ regrets “that the exclusionary bias maintained in cultural affairs has impacted the career and life of the three officials.”

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Regina Coyula, Havana, 15 November 2017 — A more inclusive air can be breathed in the corridors of Performing Arts of the Ministry of Culture. Or at least I thought that was the case when they told me that an article written by me about Departures, a work by the company El Ciervo Encantado (The Enchanted Deer), was in the catalog of the Theater Festival of Havana this year. But after the initial optimism, the logic of how events occur in authoritarian regimes caused me to doubt.

Was it an accident or a consequence of ignorance, mistake or intention on the part of three officials involved in the catalog? In any case, there was an institutional response: all of them have been removed from their positions. continue reading

My text, as has been described in the article about the punishment, is not conflictive. So that is not what the problem is. Nor should my signature be a problem because, to put it in the manner of my dear Manuel Díaz Martínez, I am an unimportant person. What is important is Departures, which twists the broken fibers of a country that for many years converted those physical partings into emotional ruptures that were intended to be final.

The work was exhibited before and during the Theater Festival, so nor is it because of the work itself. The lack, crime, transgression or whatever it is called by those imposing the punishment, has been to use a text from 14ymedio, a digital newspaper that for the authorities does not exist, inaccessible from the servers of the state telecommunications monopoly. The fact may seem ridiculous and even false to anyone who does not know the mechanisms of censorship in Cuba.

With regards to this, just a week ago I was at a presentation in Miami of the anthology The Compañero Who Watches Me, a compilation prepared by Enrique del Risco, literary and always political, of almost sixty writers about their experience with censorship, Big Brother, State Security. Sixty writers is not a small number for this little island, but at the same time their contributions fall short by the number of testimonies that do not appear because the protagonists opted for the healthy silence of voluntary oblivion, or because they were unaware of the existence of this project.

The current events surrounding Performing Arts do nothing more than provide an update to the stories in the book, not at all in the key of the past. I could not avoid the analogy.

Sincerely, I regret that the exclusionary bias maintained in cultural affairs has impacted the professional careers and lives of the three officials involved. It is an unequivocal signal for many of those who declare that politics does not interest them, whom I invite to look at the facts that have led to this “administrative” measure.

After the initial stupor, the three officials can look with new eyes at information and events all around them that previously they did not see (or did not want to see, it must be said). It is said that it is a capacity that many deploy only after being dethroned.

Without becoming Socratic, knowledge is a good path to individual freedom.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to making a serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Three Cuban Cultural Promoters Fired For Publishing a Review From ’14ymedio’ in an Official Catalog

The excerpt from Regina Coyula’s theater review that appeared in an official catalog with a reference to 14ymedio. (Luz Escobar)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 14 November 2017 — A scandal is shaking up the National Council of Performing Arts (CNAE) a few days after the end of the 17th edition of the Havana Theater Festival. The publication in the festival catalog of an excerpt from a review of the event that appeared in 14ymedio has caused three employees of the state entity to be reprimanded and dismissed from their positions.

The head of the CNAE’s Directorate of Artistic Development, Noel Bonilla, his assistant Marielvis Calzada and CNAE vice president Marlén Gutiérrez are the three workers punished by the publication, who now find themselves in the midst of a process of administrative sanctions. continue reading

The inclusion of a paragraph from a theater review published in this newspaper last February and signed by Regina Coyula unleashed the wrath of the authorities of the Ministry of Culture (Mincult) because the text came from the independent press, a part of Cuban journalism censored and hidden by officialdom.

The excerpt chosen for the catalog addresses the performance of Mariela Brito in the piece Departures, by the company El Ciervo Encantado (The Enchanted Deer), which deals with Cuban emigration. “But beyond the stories told, others float like empty rafts, those who didn’t live to tell,” says the author of the article.

Although the excerpt from the review, included on page 69 of the catalog, does not contain direct political allusions or ideological messages, Mincult officials blamed the three employees for having allowed the name of this newspaper to appear in an official publication.

“The first thing that happened was that they brought us together and asked: ‘What is14ymedio doing in a Council publication? Why is it in the catalog, instead of promoting other authors who are within our institutional system and the recognized press in Cuba?’ ” explained Noel Bonilla on Monday by telephone to this newspaper.

Bonilla adds, “it is true that it was published in the wrong way, without consultation, not verified” and especially “in the haste with which the catalog was put together” and because of “the delays that occurred in the printing process.”

The Festival, which took place between October 20 and 29, had the support of the French Embassy in Cuba, the Goethe Institute, and the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Norway among other foreign entities.

Bonilla said in his Facebook account days ago that “after almost fifteen years” he ended his responsibility as head of CNAE, after committing an alleged error. He informed readers that “he will remain attentive” to the world of theater because he considers himself “a cultural agent committed to the poetic obsessions” of artists.

In this message on social networks, the promoter told “those artists or aspirants” who were waiting for their evaluations, not to worry because “I’m sure someone will ensure continuity very soon.”

“Who sows walls collects nothing and that dreadful nothing will lead them to failure, to oblivion, to the abyss,” he says.

In a telephone conversation with 14ymedio the promoter was more cautious and avoided confirming that he had been removed from his position. Bonilla said that “until this minute” he has not been told “any official information about being fired from my job,” but confirmed that it was required because of several errors of content in the festival catalog.

With a degree as a Professor and Instructor of Dance, Bonilla has worked as a dancer, choreographer and professor at the Higher Institute of Art (ISA) of Havana. Before the incident, he was in charge of overseeing the artists in their qualifying evaluations and overseeing the progress of their projects.

“He is very capable and has managed for several years to survive in a position that carries a lot of responsibility but where one can very quickly make a misstep,” says a young actress who has worked with Bonilla and who prefers anonymity. “Right now everyone is talking about the injustice they have done to him,” she adds.

In February of this year, Bonilla was awarded the French Republic’s Chevalier Medal of Arts and Letters for his “exceptional trajectory” in the universe of Cuban and French dance.

Coyula, a regular collaborator to 14ymedio, cannot get over her astonishment at what happened. When she learned that her article appeared in the catalog she believed that “the cultural authorities had become more inclusive or that maybe it was due to someone’s ignorance of someone.”

“What I never thought was that by including that excerpt they might fire these people from their positions,” laments Coyula, who for eight years has run the blog La Mala Letra (Bad Handwriting) with topics ranging from social stories to computer news.

This independent newspaper has been blocked from servers in Cuba since its foundation. To access the site, Cuban internet users frequently use anonymous proxies or read the articles through an emailed news service or in the PDF with a selection of the best of the week, which is distributed hand-to-hand.

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The 14ymedio team is committed to serious journalism that reflects the reality of deep Cuba. Thank you for joining us on this long road. We invite you to continue supporting us, but this time by becoming a member of 14ymedio. Together we can continue to transform journalism in Cuba.

Measuring Internet Censorship in Cuba / Regina Coyula

Regina Coyula (Report from the Ooni Team) — Last May, members of the Open Observatory of the Network Interference Project (Ooni), traveled to Cuba and performed a series of tests measuring the performance of the internet at eight connection points in Havana, Santa Clara and Santiago de Cuba, with the goal of measuring the censorship of the internet.

As part of that study, they were able to confirm the blocking of 41 websites. Many of these sites include news agencies and blogs, as well as sites in favor ofdemocracy and human rights. Many of the blocked sites, directly or indirectly, express criticism of the Cuban government. However, other sites that also express criticism were found to be unblocked. continue reading

Web proxys, like Anonymous, were blocked, which limits the ability of Cubans to bypass censorship. The Tor network was accessible, probably because Cuba has relatively few Tor users.

Deep Packet Inspection (DPI) technology was found. Through latency measurements, we have been able to confirm that the blocking server is most likely to be found in Havana (and, certainly in Cuba). Only the HTTP version of the sites to be blocked was found, which could allow users to bypass censorship simply by accessing them via HTTPS. Most blocked sites, however, do not support HTTPS.

Skype was blocked. By examining packet traces, we have been able to determine that the DPI middlebox blocks Skype by means of RST injection. Other popular communication tools, such as WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger, were accessible.

It was also found that the Chinese provider Huawei is supporting the Internet infrastructure of Cuba. The server header of blocked sites, for example, pointed to Huawei equipent. It is not yet clear, although internet censorship in the country does indeed apply.

Finally, it was discovered by chance that Google is blocking the Google App Engine from Cuba (when trying to run END).

In general, internet censorship does not appear to be particularly sophisticated in Cuba. The high cost of the internet and the limited availability of public WiFi access points across the country remain the main obstacles to internet access. But as the internet landscape of Cuba evolves, techniques and practices around internet censorship will evolve.Therefore, we believe it is important to continue measuring networks with ooniprobe in Cuba and other parts of the world.

Thanks for reading our latest report — we are happy to answer any questions.

~ The Ooni team

You can read the report here.

One Site, Many Voices (or How the Hurricane Was Followed from Social Networks) / Regina Coyula

Líber Barrueta’s Facebook Page — Click on image to connect

Regina Coyula, 26 September 2017 — It is an era of false news and Líber Barrueta, a Cuban-Swede based in Miami has a website of this fake news where he sarcastically refers to the way the press tackles the news. But neither the construction of an underground transport system in Havana, nor Tony Castro talking about the uniforms of the baseball team, nor even the new customs regulations that have been the subject of so much ink, have generated as much traffic for Líber as he has had in his personal account on the social networks between the days of the 9th and 10th of September.

Those were days Cubans will not easily forget. Irma would remind us of what a powerful hurricane is capable of. Líber, who has a large number of friends on Facebook, where he creates and shares motivational videos, began to share information on the weather phenomenon on his wall. continue reading

But the information was always delayed, waiting for the television or radio to say something. On seeing his updates, a friend residing in another state called him and recommended the Windy.com app, which allows you to follow the weather events in real time.

When he saw how complete the information was, Líber installed the app on his computer and on his phone and began to study it, because his knowledge of meteorology is that of any ordinary Cuban who has watched Doctor Jose Rubiera on television. Necessity led him to understand graphics, translation speeds, path models, and how to interpret the hectopascals (units of pressure); a five minute intensive and self-managed course of meteorology.

When Irma began her scourge over the territory of Cuba, Líber transmitted uninterruptedly for four hours supported by Windy and specialized bulletins. And this produced a reaction that illustrates the measure of the power of social networks: from different parts of the world, Cubans and foreigners began to interact on Líber’s wall, either to ask specific questions about the storm, to inquire about places and people threatened by the hurricane or to share images of the affected areas. From points as dissimilar as Scotland, Russia, Angola, and from Cuba itself, they went to Líber’s wall to construct, in this informal but detailed way, the vicissitudes of the event.

After a break he transmitted for four more hours, then slept a bit, and then transmitted for another two hours until he found himself without electricity or an internet connection. Maybe he did not have too many “thumbs up” (likes), because the moment was not for that, but he received more than 50,000 visits, 1,000 comments, and stopped counting after 300 private messages. New friend requests coming after this experience exceeded Facebook’s capacity for a personal account.

Still touched by the scare by the cyclone and the astonishment over the reception of his reports, this Bachelor in Education in the specialty of Philosophy and History, confesses that he had never felt a special interest in meteorology, other than living in an area marked by tropical cyclones, but after the extraordinary experience of Irma, which began with an eagerness to keep his friends at all latitudes informed with  fresh and real information continuously updated for 10 hours, he has become motivated to know more about this subject. Líber is aware that many of those who visited his wall were not able to receive real-time information from Miami and much less from Cuba.

Líber Barrueta states that without the help of his partner Katya Moreira and without the support of her family it would have been impossible to report, comment, connect, answer, all at the same time at a frenetic pace. His mother-in-law, who at first did not understand what he was doing, became a collaborator. It does not matter that in the family they believed that, not being a specialist, it would not be possible to do it well. “People are used to it,” he says, “and this is a very widespread idea, that only what the traditional press publishes is valid, and that is the case in many countries. Little by little they understand that a vote of confidence must be given to the citizen.”

The Vicissitudes Of A “Regulated” Person

A uniformed Immigration official reported Monday to Regina Coyula that she could not travel because she was “regulated”. (EFE)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Regina Coyula, Havana, 1 August 2017 — I should be in Panama right now. But on July 31, when I showed up at the desk at José Martí International Airport, I was shown to an office where an Immigration officer informed me that I could not travel because I was “regulated.” The word has unpleasant connotations because the most frequent regulation in Cuba is menstrual regulation. In any case, questioning that official about the cause of such a ban was futile. She did not seem to know anything beyond the bad news, and it is logical that she does not have the details, given the way compartmentalization works (or is supposed to work) within the Ministry of the Interior.

I can deduce with confidence that this measure comes from the department that “attends” opponents of the government, known as Section 21 or the Directorate of Counterintelligence Confrontation. In order to know why I was “regulated,” the old retirement villa of the Marist Brothers in La Vibora district, known Villa Marista, is the place where the questions are asked. continue reading

An officer on duty (‘visitor’, I think they call him) was responsible for hearing my complaint and handling the response. The officer dialed the phone and asked for Lieutenant Colonel Kenia, and explained that I was standing in front of him asking about the reasons for the “regulation.” On the other end of the phone, the person asked for my name and surnames, and after a pause the response was disconcerting: Section 21 is not responsible for my ban on leaving the country.

I, who have an idea – an old idea but an idea at least* – of how counterintelligence works, know that if you do not have a traffic ticket or a charge against you for stepping on the grass, and if you do not work for any state agency, but you do engage in independent and critical journalism, the cabals mark 21.

But the visiting officer, very convinced that my meager record of opposition did not qualify me for the league of 21, suggested that I visit the offices of Attention to the Citizenry for Immigration where – and these were his words and not my interpretation – they would tell me who had “regulated” me and why.

After a few stumbling blocks with the leadership of the place, I arrived at 20th Street near the corner with 7th, in Miramar. I did not omit any details speaking to the official who received me and I was direct: I went to Mexico on June 26, invited to a political meeting and I was not allowed to travel.

At the time I did not inquire about the measure, because it seemed to me part of a strategy to abort or disrupt the meeting since, like me, a large group of would-be attendees was left on land by decision of the authorities. But this July 31, I was not going to a political meeting, I was going to the Latin American and Caribbean Internet Governance Forum, an event sponsored by the United Nations. As I do not belong to any party and I am the leader only of my own opinions, I wanted to know by whose orders and why I remained “regulated.”

The official, a captain, clarified for me first thing was the mistake of the Villa Marista officials; they could not give me information about who decided this part of my life and why, but she would consult on my case with her superior, a lieutenant colonel and head of the Department of Attention to Citizenship.

I spent the wait of 40 or 50 minutes reading. Then the captain wrote down my version and put my phone number at the bottom of the page. She then informed me that the bosses had made the decision to “deregulate” me starting on Wednesday.

“That is, I can get on a plane at one in the morning on Tuesday/Wednesday?”

The captain said yes, and, cheerful, added that, just in case, she would suggest doing it after eight o’clock in the morning.

I thanked her for the attention and I walked out under a tremendous downpour. Just 20 minutes after leaving the Immigration office, the phone rang. It was the cheerful captain with a counter-order: “No, you can not travel until further notice and you will be notified.”

This is when one wonders what is the idea of ​​the political police and the guidelines they receive, because my participation in the event is not newsworthy, but my absence is.

Why is the government so sensitive when it is accused of violating human rights? What Rule of Law do they presume if they do not respect their own body of law shaped during this long authoritarianism? What are they afraid of, it the propaganda always insists that they enjoy the unrestricted and combative support of our working people?

But what am I doing asking rhetorical questions?

*Translator’s note: Regina Coyula, in an earlier stage of her life, worked within Cuba’s Ministry of the Interior

Censorship / Regina Coyula

The filmmaker Miguel Coyula shooting. (Personal file MC)

Jorge Enrique Lage interviews Miguel Coyula (extracts) 6

[Miguel speaking]… I am against censorship, as we’ve seen what happened with that film in the Havana Film Festival in New York; it spreads beyond the geographical limits of the island for extra-artistic interests. I mean, politics touches everything.

The worsening of the position goes back to the censorship of the film El Rey se Muere (translated into English both as “Exit the King” and “The King is Dying”) in 2015. Many people defended Juan Carlos Cremata’s work, saying they did not believe that the censors would interpret the king as being Fidel. That is, they used the language of the government to try to address the problem, when it was clear that the reference point was him. What they should have said was “Yes, it’s Fidel. And what of it?” continue reading

To the extent that artists draw up their mental blueprint to go “as far as they can” there will never be a truly independent art form. It ends up affecting not just the content, but also the form.

Liberty has to be absolute, in order to be able to take risks, and to take off. Nothing can be sacred. At least, that’s how I see art. I’ve never been interested in being part of the political game, of religion, of the consumer society, or of drugs. It seems like a nothing, but a film-maker, interested in social or political issues, who cannot have one of his characters say “when are Fidel and Raul going to die?”, which is a such a common thing to say in Cuban homes, along with much more agressive variants on the theme, is symptomatic of a dysfunctional whole.

The artist documents his time, but, looking at Cuban films made in the island over the last seventy years, you’d think that no Cuban had ever asked that sort of question. Recently I was told, by way of advice: “You can fiddle with the chain, but not with the monkey, otherwise you are out of the game”. To which I replied: “Who said I see it as a game?”

It is essential that film producers are ready to completely defend their work,  because a half-assed attitude only gets you a slow-motion impact, which is inevitably reflected in subsequent works. You can’t give an inch.

But, returning to your question, the most recent case of censorship had to do with Nadie (Nobody), April 15th just gone, when the State Security and the PNR (National Revolutionary Police) blockaded the entrance to the El Circulo Gallery where they were going to show it. This censorship is not an institutional arrangement but a blatant governmental act, a complete invasion of a private space by way of a show of police force.

Many people outside Cuba ask me how can it be possible that no Cuban intellectual living in the island made any public protest about what happened. The film had its international premiere in the Dominican Global Film Festival, where it was awarded the Best Documentary prize, but it has been ignored by the island critics.

We don’t know if it’s good, or bad, or they were left feeling indifferent to it, or if, simply, they were afraid of writing about it, as it’s difficult to make a critical appraisal of Nadie without mentioning Fidel Castro. And, to this day, that’s the line almost no-one has dared to cross.The rock group Porno para Ricardo is one of the few who have dared to confront it, and, well, the price they have paid is that they are not allowed to play in Cuba.

Translated by GH

Anime Animates Coyula / Regina Coyula

The poet Rafael Alcides. (Regina Coyula / lamalaletra.com)

Jorge Enrique Lage interview with Miguel Coyula (fragments) 2

Miguel Coyula: [… the cinema where I first encountered anime.] [… like the video games of the late eighties and early nineties, the anime of that time had no big budgets for a fluid animation at twenty-four frames per second, Disney-style. Then they went to a visual design and assembly and sound very often shocking.] [… in the subconscious, that left a mark on the film I make.]

For me it is very important to work the space and design the storyboard to the last detail, so that no image is repeated during the editing of a scene. That is something that comes from anime, and the comic book in general. Each panel expresses an idea, just as in literature each sentence expresses something different.

As for video games, the animation was even more limited: 2D, but that same limitation …] [… it made me shape an aesthetic where the image is as loaded as possible with small elements that add density to the setting.

[… the anime stories often left me with a bitter taste. Yaltus, known as Baldios outside Cuba, was a film that marked me a lot. Its apocalyptic and depressing ending, where the earth is completely contaminated with radioactivity, left me in a state of discomfort that I have pursued in my films.

[… one of the most striking films for me, for the stylistic collage it represents, was Belladonna of Sadness, 1973. For some reason it’s the 70’s that keeps calling me over and over again as a source of inspiration.

Site Manager’s note: Once all the fragments of this interview are translated (by different volunteers) we will unite them in order, in a single post.

Counterrevolutionary or Communist / Regina Coyula

Sadly, the above video is not subtitled, but whether or not you understand the words, you can observe Miguel Coyula and Rafael Alcides speaking.

Jorge Enrique Lage interview with Miguel Coyula (fragments) 3

Miguel Coyula: … And it’s [Rafael] Alcides for several reasons. First, because in my opinion he is the best Cuban poet alive. Pata de paloAgradecido como un perro and Nadie are indispensable books; Especially Nadie [No one], written and censored in 1970, and that doesn’t see the light until 1993, when I read it for the first time and it hits me.

Alcides is often described as a sensualist, but his range is very wide. Take, for example, his poem “El Extraño“, which appears in the film: it is very brief, stripped of artifice, combines the existential and the political in a universal way, with an admirable economy of means.

But even if Alcides had not been able to write anything …] [… his own person is poetry; he has the gift of speech, a diaphanous word, he speaks of beauty and poetry without intellectual poses, despises politicians and yet can speak of them with poetry, to the point that the passion of his gestures makes him a force which seems more typical of the field of fiction than of the documentary. continue reading

[… probably Alcides is one of the few Cuban intellectuals of his generation (in fact, the only one I know of) who, residing on the island, has no qualms or filters when it comes to making public what he thinks. He has paid the price for his honesty with ostracism. Also contradictions and guilt coexist in his person. He gave himself up to a dream, sacrificed himself for it and accepted failure. I’ve always been interested in misfits. Alcides contained all the elements that interest me in the construction of a character. Perhaps his honesty and his nonchalance mean that the film can not find a place anywhere: neither in the diaspora nor in the intellectuals of his generation who remained on the island.

The fact that the film is indistinctly labeled “counterrevolutionary” and “communist” is something I am very pleased about.

The first thing we recorded was a four-hour interview, from which came a short web mini-series, seven chapters, titled “Rafael Alcides.” (Many people believe they have seen Nadie but what they have seen is the miniseries on YouTube that only totals twenty-nine minutes).

At first there was no theme at all, it was about Alcides talking freely, but he himself was outlining the theme of the Revolution and then we began to record more specific questions.

Site Manager’s note: Once all the fragments of this interview are translated (by different volunteers) we will unite them in order, in a single post.

Perverse Uchronia* / Regina Coyula

Jorge Enrique Lage interview with Miguel Coyula (fragments) 7

Miguel Coyula: So after editing it in Miami [the novel Red Sea, Blue Sea] I sent it out to Union Publishers and also ICAIC Publishers, but this is already four years ago.

The universe of this novel, post-apocalyptic, with genetic manipulation, strongly influenced by the science-fiction anime, later became Red Cockroaches and right now Blue Heart.

…In Blue Heart, Fidel Castro has undertaken an experiment in genetic engineering to construct the New Man and to save his life’s work, his project. These experiments result in failures: they result in individuals with psychological disorders, but very intelligent, which, once they are rejected by the regime that created them, they unite to destroy it. In this alternative future the system is very similar to that in China, which continues to say it is socialist, but behind the facade is brutal capitalism. continue reading

[I have been filming Blue Heart for] five years. What I don’t have in money I put in in time: hours in front of the computer to virtually build the universe that could never be built in physical reality, in ordinary filming without permits and extras.

Every time I have approached institutions to ask for money they have rejected me. The people who have become patrons of my films have approached me on their own. This is important, because when it is you who knocks on the doors, you have to be willing to accept compromises.

It is very difficult for me to sell a project because the script is constantly changing. The script is no more than a map, a skeleton without flesh, and this skeleton could change itself into an unknown creatures because, being a long process, I end up using mutations of everything that happens around me to integrate that into the narrative. It’s about filming with the same freedom as a writer have, having an idea and writing.

…more and more I choose not to go out into the street: I record the actors against a green screen

In the street, once you set up a tripod you have ten or fifteen minutes of impunity before they come to interrogate you. You may have more time, but you have to have studied the location and rehearsed the actors to be able to film very quickly. It’s the only want to have any certainty when you are filming without permission. And if the location is very complicated you have to resort to digitally unifying the different scenes and actors. The film crew is just me and my partner, Lynn Cruz. So because I don’t have the money I have to put in the time.

*From Wikipedia: Uchronia refers to a hypothetical or fictional time-period of our world, in contrast to altogether fictional lands or worlds. A concept similar to alternate history but different in the manner that uchronic times are not easily defined (mainly placed in some distant or unspecified point before current times), sometimes reminiscent of a constructed world. 

Site Manager’s note: Once all the fragments of this interview are translated (by different volunteers) we will unite them in order, in a single post.

Cuban Authorities Block Seven Activists From Traveling to Mexico for Democracy Action Meeting

Regina Coyula was not able to board her flight this Monday, like six other activists, to go to Cancun to a Forum on Democracy in Cuba. (Courtesy)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 27 June 2017 – Cuban authorities blocked at least seven activists from traveling to Cancun, Mexico this Monday, to participate in the 4th Forum on Roads to a Democratic Cuba, a meeting of the United Democratic Action Roundtable (MUAD) organized by the Konrad Adenauer Foundation (KAS), according to blogger Regina Coyula speaking to 14ymedio.

“When I arrived at the immigration window in Terminal 3 of Jose Marti International Airport, they told me to step back and wait a minute” said the activist. Then she was approached by an immigration official who, after asking for her documents, informed her that there was “a ban on travel abroad” in effect against her.

Coyula demanded explanations for the reasons she was prevented from leaving, but the agent would only say that she “had nothing to do with this” and told her if she wanted more information to visit the Office of Attention to the Population near the Plaza of the Revolution. continue reading

The other activists who were not allowed to board the plane are Rafael León Rodríguez, general coordinator of the Cuban Democratic Project; Hildebrando Chaviano, director of the Center for Analysis of Public Policies of Freedom and Development; Wilfredo Vallín and Amado Calixto Gammalame, members of the Legal Association of Cuba; Erick Álvarez, promoter of the CubaDecide initiative; and Alexei Gámez, activist of the Somos+ (We Are More) Movement.

The practice of preventing dissidents from leaving the country has become a repressive method of State Security in increasing use in recent months.

The practice of preventing dissidents from leaving the country has become a repressive method of State Security in increasing use in recent months.

In early 2013 a Migration Reform measure came into effect which eliminated the “exit permit” required for travel abroad. In the first ten months after the approval of the new measures, Cubans made more than 250,000 trips abroad. The opposition also benefited from this relaxation of controls.

However, any time it likes the Government may invoke certain subsections of article 25 of the new immigration regulations that prohibit departure “for reasons of public interest or national security.”

Travel bans are put into practice in a number of ways, including preventing opponents from leaving their home, intercepting the vehicles taking them to the airport, or notifying them at the immigration window at the airport that they are forbidden to leave, as happened on Monday.