Category: Yoani Sanchez

First Anniversary of the Death of Laura Pollán / Yoani Sanchez

Photograph: Desmond Boylan/REUTERS

Of short stature, with blue eyes and a firm voice, Laura Pollán was for years one of the most visible faces in Cuba of the Ladies in White. A teacher by profession and a civic activist by choice, she participated in the creation and strengthening of the most important dissident group on the island today.

This October 14 marks the first anniversary of her death, and many are reviewing her legacy and the current state of the movement she helped to found. Twelve months ago the big question was if this women’s group could survive the death of its principal leader, but that question has already been answered.

The current spokeswoman, Berta Soler, tells us that the Ladies in White have grown both in number and in their presence throughout the country. If, initially, the activities organized by the group were confined to Havana, now they also extend to Guantanamo, Santiago de Cuba, Matanzas, Cienfuegos, Villa Clara and Pinar del Rio.

Although she prefers not to share the exact number of women members, it is estimated to exceed 180 in all of Cuba. In her role as spokeswoman, Berta is confident, energetic. But for her, as well, the past year has meant a significant change in her life. On her shoulders, now, rests the responsibility that she seems to carry with ease. She always refers to her predecessor and does so with love and respect.

This Sunday, if they are allowed to gather there, the Ladies in White will make a special pilgrimage around Santa Rita Church as a tribute to Laura Pollán. From the early hours of the morning, at their headquarters in Neptune Street, they will also open the doors to all who wish to pay their respects or sign the memory book for the fallen leader. Already, an altar dressed in white adorns the corner of the little room where she lived and a photo of Laura smiling is surrounded by gladioli.

Since last Friday, traffic on Neptune Street, a major capital arterial, has been blocked off. Government supporters are gathered in front of the Ladies in White headquarters, claiming to be there “to commemorate the 45th anniversary of the death of Ernesto Guevara and 53 years since the disappearance of Camilo Cienfuegos.”

None of them, when asked, made any reference to the women dressed in white whom they could see through the open door of the house at number 963. The volume of music at the event had been annoying the neighbors since early morning. “I don’t know why all the fuss against some peaceful unarmed women?” said a young man, who fled out of fear of reprisals after saying his name. Meanwhile, the conga broadcast through the bullhorns continued to blare in all directions.

Laura Pollán: the woman who jumped beyond her own shadow

When her husband was arrested during the so-called Black Spring of 2003, Laura Pollán’s life experienced a radical change. She rose from anonymity and domestic routine to be at the center of praise from democratizing forces and insults from the official press.

The last Sunday of March in 2003 a group of women dressed in white clothing attended mass for the first time at Santa Rita Parish, in the beautiful Miramar district of Havana. From that time on, peaceable 5th Avenue became the scene of their Sunday March for this group of women that grew in number and prestige over the years. Their main demand was structured around the release of the 75 opponents of the regime sentenced to long prison terms.  Fidel Castro’s government had dealt a devastating blow to the dissidence, justifying it legally with Law 88, also known as the “Gag Law.” The accusations centered around the alleged involvement of the accused with destablization plans hatched in the United States.

In 2005 these women, always dressed in white, were recognized with the European Parliament’s Sakharov Prize, but the government did not allow them to travel to participate in the award ceremony. However, they continued their peregrinations every Sunday and also other activities, principally in the city of Havana. The headquarters of the group came to be the humble home of Laura Pollan, in Neptune Street.

Repudiation rallies raged against them as did attacks in the official media. It was a rare month in which there wasn’t some television program accusing them of being “employees of the Empire” or categorizing them with the aggressive epithet, “Ladies in Green.” Reputation assassination and a public stoning of their image have been among the methods most used against the Ladies in White. Laura Pollán was a favorite and systematic target of these defamations.

Between 2010 and 2011 the Cuban government carried out a process of releases, in which the Catholic Church and Spain’s Foreign Ministry played the role of mediators. The prisoners from the Black Spring still behind bars were released. Many went into exile in Spain and a few others decided to remain in Cuba. The Ladies in White had to redefine their civic role and chose, then, a Human Rights movement that now transcends their original precepts.  The headquarters of the movement continues to be the home of Laura Pollan.

When Laura Pollán was admitted to a Havana hospital emergency room, very few believed that her situation was terminal. The fortitude that animated this little woman made us believe she would recover quickly. But on the night of October 14 the news of her death dismayed the entire Cuban dissident community. Although the medical report stated that the cause of death was respiratory failure, doubts still surround the death of the activist.

When she died she had been able to enjoy only eight months in the company of her husband after he was imprisoned for more than seven years.

One year later

The peaceful woman’s movement Laura Pollán helped to conceive and build, has redefined itself and shows signs of growth. It seems unlikely that the Cuban government can eradicate the Ladies in White with acts of repudiation, with defamation and with brief arrests. But nor does the day seem near when they will recognize them and legally allow their association.

According to Berta Soler, “repression is now greater and stronger than ever.” She made that statement in the room where a little over a year ago Laura Pollán sat, talked, gave statements to the press… lived.

14 October 2012

They Tried to Strip Me. I Resisted and Paid the Price.* / Yoani Sanchez

Photo from El Pais. Yoani Sánchez in Cuba in an archive image. / JOSÉ GOITIA

They wanted to keep me from attending the trial of Angel Carromero, the Spaniard who was driving when a car crash killed Oswaldo Paya and Harold Cepero. Around five in the afternoon a big operation on the outskirts of Bayamo stopped the car my husband, a friend, and I were driving in. “You want to disrupt the court,” a man dressed completely in olive-green told us, as he immediately proceeded to arrest us.

The operation had the scale of an arrest against a gang of drug traffickers, or the capture of a prolific serial murderer. But instead of such threatening people, there were just three individuals who wanted to participant as observers in a judicial process, looking on from within the courtroom. We had believed the newspaper Granma when it published that the trial was oral and public. But, you already know, Granma lies.

However, in arresting me, they were actually giving me the chance to experience, as a journalist, the other side of the story. To walk in the shoes of Angel Carromero, to experience how pressure is applied to a detainee. To know firsthand the intricacies of the Department of Investigations of the Ministry of the Interior.

The first were three uniformed women who surrounded me and took my cell phone. Up to that point the situation was confused, aggressive, but still had not crossed the line into violence. Then these same hefty ladies took me into a room to strip me.

But there is a portion of ourselves no one can rip from us. I don’t know, perhaps the last fig leaf to which we cling when we live under a system that knows everything about our lives. In a bad and contradictory verse it might read, “you can have my soul… my body, no.” So I resisted and paid the consequences.

After that moment of maximum tension came the turn of the “good cop.” Someone who comes to me saying they have the same last name as me — as if that’s good for anything — and they would like “to talk.” But the trap is so well known, has been so often repeated, that I don’t fall into it.

I immediately imagine Carromero subjected to the same tension of threat and “good humor”… it’s difficult to endure this for long. In my case, I remember having taken a breath after a long diatribe against the illegality of my arrest where I repeated one sentence for more than three hours: “I demand you let me make a phone call, it’s my right.” I needed the certainty the reiteration gave me. The chorus made me feel strong in front of people who had studied the diverse methods of softening human will at the Academy. An obsession was all I needed to confront them. And I became obsessed.

For a while it seemed my insistent nagging had been in vain, but after one in the morning I’m allowed to make the call. A few phrases to my father, through a line obviously tapped, and everything was said. I could then enter the next stage of my resistance. I called it “hibernation,” because when you name something you systematize it, believe it.

I refused to eat, to drink anything; I refused the medical exam of several doctors brought in to check on me. I refused to collaborate with my captors and I told them. I couldn’t get out of my mind the helplessness of Carromero over more than two months of dealing with these wolves alternating the role of sheep.

Much of the time all of my activity was filmed by a camera operated by a sweaty paparazzi. I don’t know if one day if they’ll put some of these shots on State television, but I organized my ideas and my voice so that they would not be able to broadcast anything that infringes on my convictions. Either they will keep the original audio with my demands, or have to make a hash of it with the voiceover of an announcer. I tried to make it as difficult as possible for them to edit the material later.

I only made one request in 30 hours of detention: I need to use the bathroom. I was prepared to take the battle to the end, but my bladder, no. Afterwards they took me to a dungeon-suite. I had spent hours in another with a rare combination of curtains and bars, terribly hot. So to come to a larger room, with a television and several chairs, opening onto a room with a tantalizing bed, was a low blow. Just looking at the pattern of the curtains, I had the presentment that it was the same place where they’d made the first recording that circulated Angel Carromero’s statement on the Internet.

This was not a room, it was a stage set. I knew it immediately. So I refused to lie down on the freshly made bed and put my head on the tempting pillow. I went to a chair in the corner and curled up. Two women in military uniforms watching me at all times. I was living another deja vu, the memory of the scene that transpired in the early days of Carromero’s detention.

I knew it and it was hard. A hardness not in the beating or in torture, but in the conviction that I could not trust anything that happened within these walls. The water might not be water, the bed looked more like a trap, and the solicitous doctor was more snitch than physician. The only thing I had left was to submerge myself into the depth of “me,” close the gates to the outside, and that’s what I did. The “hibernation” phase let to a self-induced lethargy. I didn’t utter another word.

By the time they told me I was “being transferred to Havana,” I could barely raise my eyelids and my tongue was practically hanging out of my mouth from the effects of prolonged thirst. However, I felt that I had won.

In a final gesture, one of my captors offered his hand to help me into the minibus where my husband was. “I do not accept the courtesy of repressors,” I fulminated. And once again I thought of the young Spaniard who saw his life turned upside down that July 22, who had to struggle among all these deceptions.

On arriving home I learned from the other detainees that Oswaldo Payá’s own family was not allowed to enter the courtroom. Also that the prosecutor asked for a seven-year sentence against Angel Carromero, and that the trial had been “concluded, awaiting sentencing” on Friday. Mine was just a stumble, the great drama continued to be the death of one man and the imprisonment of another.

*Translator’s note: Yoani lost a tooth.

From El Pais

6 October 2012

For Those Who Are Worried About Yoani Sanchez, Under Arrest in Bayamo…

Site manager: Many inquiries have been received by this site expressing great concern for what might be happening to Yoani, who was arrested in Bayamo on her way to cover the trial of Angel Carromero who was driving the car in which Oswaldo Paya and Harold Cepero died. Below are audio recordings of Yoani being arrested in 2010, which may give us some idea of what could be happening now.

ADDED TEXT: Again, in response to questions, the reason for posting this was to give readers confidence that Yoani knows how to “stand up for herself”… !

Note: There is no video on the “videos”… only audio.

Post from Generation Y: My Last Bit of Faith on 14 May 2010

Note to English-speaking readers: The transcript for these videos in Spanish and English can be downloaded below.

We will reduce them to obedience to the law.
Julio, lawyer

More than 60 days ago I sent several Cuban institutions a complaint for illegal detention, police violence and arbitrary imprisonment. After the death of Orland Zapata Tamayo, successive illegal arrests prevented more than one hundred people from participating in the activities surrounding his funeral.  I was among the many who ended up in a jail cell on February 24, when we went to sign the condolence book opened in his name. The level of violence used against me, and the violation of the procedures for detaining an individual at a Police Station, led me to file a claim with little hope that it would be heard in court. I have waited all this time for the response of both the Military Prosecutor and the Attorney General, holding back this revealing testimony, painful evidence of how our rights are violated.

Fortunately, my cell phone recorded the audio of what happened that gray Wednesday, and even after being confiscated it recorded the conversations of the state security agents and the police – who wore no badges – who had locked us up by force at the Infanta y Manglar station. The evidence contains the names of some of those responsible, reveals the background of the police operation against dissidents, independent journalists and bloggers. I have sent copies of this dossier of a “kidnapping” to international organizations concerned with Human Rights, protection of reporters, and all those related to abuse. Several attorneys from the Law Association of Cuba have advised me in this endeavor.

Although there is little chance that someone will be brought to account, at least those responsible will know that their atrocities no longer remain hidden in the silence of their victim. Technology has allowed all of this to come to light.

——————
* Some elements that complete this dossier of a “kidnapping”:
– The female voice on the tape with me is that of my sister, Yunia Sánchez.
– Transcript of the recording, in Spanish and English.
– Acknowledgments of receipt from the Military Prosecutor, Attorney General, National Assembly of People’s Power, Police Station where the incident occurred, the Council of State and the National Headquarters of the National Revolutionary Police (PNR).

Update on Arrest of Yoani Sanchez, Reinaldo Escobar, Agustin Lopez (and others?) in Bayamo

Police blockades outside the court. Source: EFE

Site manager’s note: The following excerpts are translated from an article in Cubaencuentro.  In addition, an official government blogger reported that Yoani traveled to Bayamo intending to disrupt and put on a “media show” at the trial of Angel Carromero, who was driving the car in which Oswaldo Paya and Harold Cepero were killed.

For those who are unaware, Yoani is a correspondent for the Spanish newspaper El Pais, and was intending to cover the trial. Oswaldo Paya’s children also traveled to Bayamo, and according to tweets from Rosa Paya, his daughter, they have been prevented from attending the trial. Also note, Agustin Lopez has been reported in some tweets to be Agustin “Diaz.” Finally, the Paya and the Cepero families have specifically stated that they do not hold Angel Carromero responsible for the car crash.

From Cubaencuentro:

The well-known Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez and her husband, thejournalist Reinaldo Escobar, among other activitists, have been arrested this Thursday in Bayama, reported the official journalist Garcia Ginarte and it has been confirmed in Twitter by several sources on the Island.

…Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo on his account on the social network, who says he received the information from Teo, Sanchez and Escobar’s son. According to what Teo Escobar told the blogger, the activists were detained at 6:00 in the afternoon and were not permitted to make telephone calls until 3:00 in the morning, the time when his parents called him to report their arrest.

5 October 2012

 

30 Cuban Hunger Strikers Win Release of an Opponent / Yoani Sanchez

Martha Beatriz Roque, a few minutes after ending her hunger strike. Photo: Yoani Sanchez

After a week on a hunger strike, several Cuban dissidents ended their fast this Tuesday afternoon. The number of opponents refusing to eat had reached 30 throughout the country, with their main demand the immediate release of the activist Jorge Vazquez Chaviano. Accused of the crime of “illicit economic activity,” he was sentenced to 18 months and was due to be released on September 9th. But instead of freeing him, the prison authorities transferred him to another prison in the central province of Santa Clara.

Vazquez Chaviano’s wife, along with other family members, staged a protest on Monday in front of the Guajamal prison where the prisoner had been transferred in the past. After this incident the relatives received a summons from the office of State Security in the city of Santa Clara. There they were informed of the pending release of the prisoner, which as of the time of writing this report has not yet been put into effect. However, the thirty activists decided to end the hunger strike, expecting in the coming hours that their principal demand would be met and Vazquez Chaviano would be returned to his home. The Supreme Court file — shown to the relatives — also confirmed the immediate release.

Opposition figures arrived throughout the day at the home of economist Martha Beatriz Roque, one of the principal figures of this particular protest of empty stomachs. At the stroke of six in the evening the journalist and psychologist Guillermo Farinas arrived; he has led similar hunger strikes, the best known of which was in 2010. Although the neighborhood was calm, cars parked on both sides of the street sheltered men who closely inspected everyone who approached. Inside the house the feeling was one of relief, of victory.

Since the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo in February 2010, the product of a prolonged hunger strike, for the same cause, ending in death — and similarly that of Wilmar Villar and his death in January of this year — the Cuban authorities have not had an easy time handling such situations. On one side is the international pressure, and on the other the fear that the death of an activist will trigger a revolt, which makes them cautious and leads them to give in to the pressure.

During the entire time the national press has ignored the hunger strike of these thirty activists. Only a few of the official blogs have spread jokes and raised suspicions about the strikers.

Solidarity of the international community

Several personalities and international organizations have demonstrated, from the beginning, their concern and support for the strikers. A statement from Amnesty International demanded an immediate explanation for why Jorge Vázquez Chaviano remained in prison. Social networks also joined the fight this time, to create something that is taking shape in Cuba today as a mixture of real struggle and virtual struggle.

The reality is, at least this time, a tragic outcome has been avoided.

19 September 2012

Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo Still in Custody / Yoani Sanchez

Translator’s note: The news of Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo’s arrest is beginning to appear on international news sites.  Also detained are his girlfriend, Silvia Corbelle Batista, and friend and fellow regime opponent Manuel Cuesta Morua.

1 hour: They told us in the Police Station that we are allowed to bring toiletries to OLPL, soap, toothpaste, and a towel… why don’t they free him?

3 hours: We are demanding they release OLPL. A group of us are pressuring in front of Section 21 and another in front of the El Cotorro Station.

3 hours: In front of the Cotorro Police Station we are congregating — some friends of OLPL — a small way to pressure.

 

Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo Located / Yoani Sanchez

The police station where Orlando Luis Pardo Laza and his girlfriend Silvia are being held

1 minute: The station where OLPL and his girlfriend Silvia are being held.

31 minutes: We are arriving at the Cotorro Station still with no confirmation that OLPL is there. Attorneys from the Cuban Law Association are going to Section 21. [Readers: See post below]

54 minutes: We have been stopped by the police, they are surrounding the car and won’t let us continue. But we continue on foot.

1 hour: I called the 106 police number and they told me OLPL was taken to the Cotorro Station but still no confirmation.

Translator’s note: Tweets from others suggest additional people might have been arrested with OLPL and Silvia — we will confirm when we have information.

1 September 2012

Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo Treated Like a Drug Kingpin or Terrorist / Yoani Sanchez

6 min ago: They have launched an operation against OLPL as if he were the drug kingpin or terrorist, when in reality he is a peaceful man, armed with words.
18 min ago: We are going to the Aguilera station to find out what is happening with OLPL. Aguilera Street at 9 de Abril and Lugareno, Lawton

Is Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo Being Arrested Right Now? / Yoani Sanchez

Something is happening with OLPL, he has called me but all I hear are screams, I think he is being arrested.
OLPL was able to dial my number before they arrested him, now I can hear the sounds of a car, screams and warnings.
A man screams at OLPL. He still doesn’t know that in his [OLPL’s] pocket his cellphone is “open” and the sound of everything is coming to me.
I have this huge sense of “impotence” listening to the line as OLPL is arrested but I don’t know where he is, where they are taking him.

— ADDITION to ORIGINAL POST —

At least this time this gadget with keys and a screen has served to alert [us about] what is happening, but sadly it is not ENOUGH.

— SECOND ADDITION —

They’ve cut OLPL’s line; just before I heard screams but distorted by movement and distance. I have recorded a little…

Political Police Stake Out Estado de Sats and Arrest “Movie Night” Attendees

I am [being] arrested at Infanta and Manglar [in the] Cerro [neighborhood]

According to tweets not posted here, the apparent plan to stage a “repudiation rally” at Estado de Sats was called off after Antonio Rodiles, manager of the project, delivered a complaint to the police (see third post down). So “Movie Night” went off as scheduled although people were blocked from reaching the site, and some were arrested as they left.

Luis Felipe: Blogger Eugenio Leal by text message: “I am detained at Infanta and Manglar, Cerro.”
Yoani: Among detainees of today are Walfrido Lopez and Eugenio Leal, the latter is at 4th Police Station at Infanta and Manglar
Regina: Received text message from blogger Eugenio Leal, detained by PNR [National Revolutionary Police] at Infanta and Manglar.
Tweets copied and posted at 1:00 AM Havana time, 11 August 2012