English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
The few expectations generated by the Ninth Congress of the Union of Journalists and Writers of Cuba ( UPEC ), held last weekend, ended in frustration. The changes that demand journalism plays an effective role in social transformations were conspicuous by their absence. The conclave ignored the issue of press freedom, a vital issue to … Continue reading “UPEC and the Freedom of the Press / Dimas Castellanos”
HAVANA, Cuba, August 28, 2013, Michel Iroy Rodriguez / www.cubanet.org.- The ballplayer Jonathan Machado Tarrago, nicknamed Suzuki, age 14, who was stolen base leader in games held in Taipei, China in July 2011, will not be allowed to participate in the 2015 Pan American Games in Toronto, Canada, as the son of a regime opponent. … Continue reading “Outstanding Child Baseball Player Marginalized Because he is the Son of Dissidents / Michel Iroy Rodriguez”
28 August 2013
Today, August 28, marks six months since Angel was unjustly imprisoned by the Castro dictatorship, after their having invented crimes he did not commit, making use of his former wife and the mother of his son to perform a show trial in which they were unable to prove absolutely any of these alleged crimes for … Continue reading “Communication: As of today, Angel Santiesteban has served 6 months in prison, incommunicado”
Havana, Cuba, August of 2013, www.cubanet.org — “As long as the Office of Religious Affairs of the Communist Party’s Central Committee exists to monitor pastoral work, one cannot speak of religious liberty in Cuba.” So said Pastor Mario Felix Lleonart from the Baptist Church of Taguayabon to Cubanet in the province of Villa Clara. The … Continue reading “Why Does the Communist Party Control the Churches? / Lilianne Ruiz”
Dimas is second from right. Interview with Dimas Castellanos Marti, historian and journalist. From Havana, Felix Sautie Mederos Por Esto! asks: “Unravel the causes of the crisis our society finds itself in (…) The concept of race as a group of hereditary characteristics seems to lack foundation, as a social construction it has a damaging … Continue reading “Interview with Dimas Castellanos”
This week I will dedicate my post to what is called the Youth Labor Army (EJT), on the 40th anniversary of its creation, which is Saturday, August 3, and nineteen years since my release from its “ranks,” which occurred on July 28. This so-called Army, created in 1973, it’s said, from a merger of the … Continue reading “The 40th Anniversay of the Youth Labor Army (EJT) / Mario Lleonart”
HAVANA, Cuba, August 1, 2013, www.cubanet.org.- The members of the Committee on the Elimination of Discrimination against Women (CEDAW) bluntly expressed their concern “with the persistence of violence against women, including domestic violence in Cuba,” says a report published last July 25 on its official web page. They said that the phenomenon remains underreported, “due … Continue reading “UN Experts Concerned About the Situation of Violence Against Women on the Island / Yaremis Flores”
On April 16, 1961, just before the end of a fiery speech at the speech delivered during the funeral for the victims of the bombardments that marked the prelude of the Bay of Pigs invasion, Fidel Castro exclaimed: “Comrades, workers and peasants, this is the Socialist and democratic Revolution of the humble, by the humble … Continue reading “Did Fidel Castro Make a Revolution Of the Humble, By the Humble and For the Humble? / Ivan Garcia”
If, from the island, a person wants to read about the rusty North Korean freighter Chong Chon Gang, where the Cuban regime was caught with obsolete Russian weaponry, they must pay 4.50 CUC an hour — ten days of a worker’s wages — in one of the 118 Internet rooms opened on June 4. They … Continue reading “Cuba Maintains Silence About North Korean Ship / Ivan Garcia”
Dear Angel, Today is August 2nd and it’s your birthday, locked up in this filthy and inhumane Concentration Camp of the dictatorship that is Prison 1580. They try to freeze you, isolate you, silence you. Nothing has succeeded. Not only because you are stronger morally than that tremendous State apparatus put to work to control … Continue reading “Does a Good Man Wake Up Younger Every Day? Angel Santiesteban Who is Celebrating His Birthday Today In Prison”
I am in search of the forbidden book, like the Golem, or like the treasure of Eternal Youth. Why does a presidential, dictatorial or authoritarian edict decide to ban, hunt down and remove a book from a country. Faced with these questions I went looking with my Facebook friends and put an invitation on the … Continue reading “The Banned Book in Cuba / Luis Felipe Rojas”
Yesterday, faced once more with the frustration of not being able to connect to the internet, my friend and I decided to go shopping in the stores of the area. She needed a faucet for her kitchen and I didn’t take any money as I went along just to look. We got to the complex … Continue reading “Kafka’s Stores / Rebeca Monzo”
HAVANA, Cuba, www.cubanet.org Recently Cuban “parliamentarians” discussed the issue of prostitution among young people. According to the press official, they drafted strategies to face this evil, as well as pandering, widespread today all across the Island. It is known that, since 1959, the regime openly proclaimed that women would not have to sell their bodies, … Continue reading “The "Yumas" Pay Between 80 and 120 CUC per Night / Leon Padron Azcuy”
HAVANA, Cuba, July 2013, www.cubanet.org.- When a Cuban family is afflicted by disease there are many who depend on the favor of some neighbor with a car to take them to the hospital. Moreover, the paramedics and nurses of the Comprehensive Emergency Medical System (SIUM) depend on the “thanks” for their patients to “resolve” a chance … Continue reading “Up To 12 Hours to Attend Medical Emergencies / Lilianne Ruiz”
