English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
14ymedio, Miriam Celaya, West Palm Beach, 1 August 2018 – A reading of the 224 articles of the constitutional draft confirms the Government’s intention to shore up and update its own legitimacy through the modifications made to the Constitution. The second objective seeks the elimination of any possibility, whether current or future, of questioning the … Continue reading “The Traps of Constitutional Reform”
14ymedio, Marcelo Hernández, Havana, July 16, 2018 – The screen stands out in the middle of the dilapidated communal taxi. A small arrow marks the path the vehicle is following through the crowded streets of Camagüey and the driver reassures the passengers. “I don’t know where it is, but this device tells me,” he explains and caresses the TomTom GPS, … Continue reading “GPS Use in Cuba Increases Despite its Prohibition”
14ymedio Reinaldo Escobar, Havana, 16 July 2018 — In his first ideological speech, President Miguel Díaz-Canel displayed with astonishing simplicity the scope of his political thought in his closing remarks at the 10th Congress of the Cuban Journalists Union (UPEC), a meeting in which professionals of the official press raised the slogan “The truth needs … Continue reading “Diaz-Canel Praises State’s Monopoly on the Press and the Truth”
Cubanet, Miriam Celaya, West Palm Beach, 27 June 2018 — After more than a year since the death of Castro I, and just a few weeks after the symbolic withdrawal of Castro II from his post at the head of the Cuban government, the only verifiable changes within today’s Cuba are the accelerated and unstoppable … Continue reading “Plebiscites and Elections in Cuba: Between the Illusory and the Possible”
It was the 80s and, from Cuba, Nicaragua seemed to offer hope that the leftist revolutions would take power across the continent. The fall of the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza fit into the pieces of my children’s puzzle, where the walls of the Kremlin, Fidel Castro’s beard and Nicaragua’s volcanoes shared space. A classmate in my … Continue reading “We, The Guilty”
Iván García, 10 May 2018 — It seems a lot of time has passed since the night of July 31, 2006 when Fidel Castro’s former secretary, Carlos Valenciaga, announced on the eight o’clock news that the bearded former guerrilla leader was retiring due to illness. Most Cubans remember what they were doing at that moment. … Continue reading “Raul Castro’s Inconclusive Reforms / Ivan Garcia”
14ymedio, Reyes Theis, Caracas, 3 May 2018 — The similarities between Cuba and Venezuela are becoming more and more evident, and it is not only about ideological coincidences and the repetition of empty and propagandistic ideas. Their daily realities are increasingly similar and the arbitrary designs of their regimes coincide in treating the press as enemies. Anyone … Continue reading “In Venezuela, Gagging the Press is a Revolutionary Priority”
14ymedio, Mario J. Pentón/Reporting Team, Miami, 17 April 2018 — On the last day of July 2006 Cuba’s prime time news program broke with its usual monotony. Carlos Valenciaga, Fidel Castro’s chief of staff, announced to Cuba and the world that the hitherto invincible Commander-in-Chief had temporarily ceded power, after suffering intestinal bleeding. Raúl Castro, his younger brother, took … Continue reading “What Has and Has Not Changed in Cuba Since Raul Casto Came to Power”
14ymedio, Havana, 1 April 2018 — ‘FactorUV’ does not like his name spoken and prefers the pseudonym for which he is known in Cuban digital networks. He is 21 and has been glued to a computer screen since he was a child, although he lives in a country with one of the lowest Internet connectivity rates on … Continue reading “Despite the Government and Censorship, Cubans ’Resolve’ the Internet”
Juan Juan Almeida, 23 March 2018 — For some reason that I can not recall, the name of Diaz-Canel impressed itself on me some time ago, when one afternoon, between 1992 and 1994, I arrived at the house of the chief guard of my father (Juan Almeida Bosque) and he told me that, during a meeting … Continue reading “Miguel Mario Diaz-Canel Powerful and Without Power / Juan Juan Almeida”
Juan Juan Almeida, 23 February 2018 — The well-known plastic artist Alexis Leyva Machado, known as Kcho, an emblematic figure of official cultural, was transferred from the house where he was receiving treatment to fight a severe drug addiction to a holding center to legally prosecute him for being involved in various criminal actions. With the … Continue reading “Kcho in the Hands of Raul Castro / Juan Juan Almeida”
14ymedio, Havana, 19 February 2018 — Daniel Llorente, the “man with the flag,” was denied visits this Sunday at the Havana Psychiatric Hospital, because he is being punished for protesting with a sign in the hospital courtyard, his son confirmed to 14ymedio. At the entrance to the Comandante Doctor Eduardo Bernabé Ordaz Ducungede Psychiatric Hospital, … Continue reading “Daniel Llorente Exchanges US flag For Poster Against “Raúl Castro Dictatorship””
Diario de Cuba, 30 January 2018 — Forced into exile by the Cuban regime, the Legal Information Center (Cubalex) has undergone a “radical and painful change”. However, reorganized in the USA, it aims to continue along the project’s same line: “to internationally denounce the Cuban State for its human rights violations, and spotlight the situation in the country. ” … Continue reading “‘Cuban civil society fails to utilize the mechanisms to report human rights violations’”
14ymedio, Ricardo Fernández, Camaguey, 7 February 2018 — The city of Camagüey is experiencing an intense digital transformation thanks to independent wireless networks that connect thousands of users throughout the country. It is a complex framework that carries the Wi-Fi signal from the Telecommunications Company of Cuba (ETECSA) to all neighborhoods and also eliminates censorship. In this … Continue reading “Uncensored Internet in Camaguey Thanks to Alternative Networks”
Elías Amor Bravo, 3 January 2018 — Cuba’s restrictions on internet access are an example of the types of controls the regime imposes on the population. On 28 December, however, it was announced that in 2018 the island’s inhabitants were expected to have access from their cell phones, something that thus far has not been the … Continue reading “Mobile Internet and the Right of Cubans to Social Networks”
