Honor for Reporters without Borders / Angel Santiesteban

Dear Christophe Deloire,

Secretary General of Reporters without Borders,

“Honor to those who deserve it,” said our José Martí, anticipating my mother, who inculcated in my education the culture of gratitude.

Many at the start of my imprisonment have stayed at my side in this passage that has lasted more than a year; but Reporters without Borders has been the most outstanding, when, from the beginning, after reading all my proofs presented in the alleged “trial” that they carried out, and later augmented in the Review, they decided to support me without flinching one iota in my defense.

In a personal letter, where I also thanked them for their honest and brave stance, I described to them the feeling that embraces us when, from the darkest cell, behind bars, abused by the henchmen of the dictatorship, we get a sign of encouragement from the organization that you lead, calling on the totalitarian President of State to restore the rights that were taken away.

In my personal case, it provided me this extra strength, after two weeks in the hole on a hunger strike, that made me feel happy for what I do although they advised me and begged that I consider my life first and never choose starvation as a way of struggle.

In spite of the suffering of being deprived of the most valuable thing for a human being, freedom, and of missing our families and the free consumption of art, we feel worthy of such luck, if the state without rights persists in our faces.

I want a country without censorship, and when that happens, we will be living a new political, social and cultural stage, for the Cuba we need to build with the force of everyone. Until then, a grateful hug to you and your work team, especially to the warm and selfless work of Camille Soulier and Lucie Morillon, always attentive to what is happening on our continent with the lamentable regression in the matter of freedom of expression and the persecution of professionals of information, particularly their compromise with Cuban journalists.

All your work is laudable and fundamental for the quest for personal and civic liberties of those of us who humbly wish to contribute a light of truth from the center of total darkness.