English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
Note: I published this a year ago and have nothing to say I didn’t say them, I have reposted the text (on the anniversary of his death). Still dazed and in shock I compose these words to Oswaldo. When I started to get the first messages about Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas’s death they were showing the … Continue reading “Oswaldo Paya: The Act of Serving / Luis Felipe Rojas”
17 July 2013
Independent LGBT activists marched before the Capitol this weekend — photo by Lilianne Ruiz HAVANA, Cuba, July 2nd 2013, Lilianne Ruiz / www.cubanet.org — In concurrence with Gay Pride Day, celebrated worldwide every 28th of June, a dozen activists marched past the Capitol last Saturday, led by Leannes Imbert Acosta, director of the LGBT community’s … Continue reading “Independent March in Front of the Capitol Demands Gay Marriage / Lilianne Ruiz”
HAVANA, Cuba, July 2013, www.cubanet.org. In Combinado del Este Prison, in the presence of a lieutenant from the Ministry of the Interior, a common prisoner threatened political prisoner Ernesto Borges with death. This past June, the common prisoner, who was appointed by the prison authorities as “Head of the Council of Prisoners” despite being a … Continue reading “Life or Death of a Political Prisoner: Instructions in a Sealed Envelope / Lilianne Ruiz”
This morning I was awakened by a call from a friend to tell me that finally señor Ricardo Alarcón had uttered words referring to our encounter*. I immediately started to make arrangements to see where I could download this post, but nothing worked. It was already around 11:00 and curiosity made me make a sad … Continue reading “Response to Ricardo Alarcon / Eliecer Avila”
We are living in a world where, dangerously, what’s important for the work of many is just to show results. Perhaps for that reason, for nostalgia, convenience, desire, hope, belief, deception or passion; we make the mistake of looking to Havana and distorting the reality, imagining the Cuban government as a bankrupt controlling consortium. Sorry, … Continue reading “Raul Prepares His Retirement / Juan Juan Almeida”
It all started very early, at the beginning of the seventies. Soon the Maximum figures of the triumph of the ’fifty-nine revolution, realized that they if they wanted to install themselves in power, firmly and indefinitely, they are going to have to take over the mass media of communication, in the then flat press, radio … Continue reading “The Tagline, Putative Mother of Censorship / Rebeca Monzo”
Photo taken by “The Voice of the Sandinismo” I am not going to refer to the song by Mexican Jose Alfredo Jimenez but to the spirit, the intention that gravitates like smog over the Cuban archipelago and part of the world. Given the person that it concerns, we should be accustomed to that kind of … Continue reading “The Military King / Rosa Maria Rodriguez”
The opponent Madelín Lázara Caraballo, detained for nine months in a prison for HIV-AIDS sufferers, in San Jose de las Lajas, will be tried Wednesday at the Old Havana municipal court. She is accused of the crimes of “public disorder, Article 200.1.2, contempt, 144.1, incitement to crime, 202.1.3, and resistance, 143.1, of the Penal Code, … Continue reading “They Are Prosecuting an Activist Against Evictions in Old Havana / Luis Felipe Rojas”
Wendy, my good little dog Wendy, the family dog, has always been pampered by my youngest son and me. My first born and husband haven’t been as engaged, but lately she’s been sick and since them everyone has equally lavished expressions of affection. Like any dog, she is greedy and comes up to beg when … Continue reading “Eating the Yankee / Rosa Maria Rodriguez”
From Sampsonia Way Magazine. Since the end of the 1980s, Ángel Santiesteban has been known as one of the most brilliant writers of his generation. In this position he touches upon subjects that are pretty uncomfortable for Cuban political culture: The island’s military interference in Angola and Ethiopia, the genocide of people fleeing towards liberty … Continue reading “The Son that Nobody Wanted / Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo”
To visit the site in Warsaw of the Helsinki Foundation for Human Rights on the afternoon of the historic June 4, anniversary of those first elections with which Poles inaugurated their new period of democracy; to be received there with so much emotion by its President Danuta Przywara, and to hear her from her own … Continue reading “The Summing up of the Helsinki Foundation / Mario Lleonart”
The first two deacons of the Old Mission Church, Our Lady of Joy, in Cuba, were ordained by Monsignor Ricardo Santiago Medina Salabarría, Primate Bishop of this church in Cuba, at eight o’clock on the night of the Wednesday nineteenth of June of two thousand thirteen, in the Chapel (private) of “Immaculate Mary” of the … Continue reading “Leandro Cesar Mastrapa Igarza and Alexis Zayas Guillen were Ordained as Deacons/ Katia Sonia”
Published in the second edition of Cuadernos de Pensamiento Plural, April 2013. People cannot live without history. On the 160th anniversary of the birth José Martí, “the crowning figure of Cuban political thought,” his ideas, instead of being used to solve the serious social problems that afflict Cuban society, continue to be manipulated in order to validate … Continue reading “The Philosophy of Marti versus the Totalitarian Model”
Literature and Justice The award-winning writer Angel Santiesteban is imprisoned unjustly for his confrontational attitude to the Castro regime. On Wednesday, February 27, at the headquarters of the Estado de Sats project there was a farewell to Angel Santiesteban Prats, the award-winning writer. The next morning, he will present himself to serve the prison sentence … Continue reading “The Santiesteban Case: A Crude Judicial Hoax / Angel Santiesteban”
