English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
Sign the petition to release Andrés Carrión, a Cuban who shouted at the Papal Mass against the Castro Communist regime Target: Human Rights International Organizations -Sponsored by: DEMOCRACY MOVEMENT ENGLISH On … Continue reading “SAVE ANDRES CARRION ALVAREZ A BRAVE CUBAN / Buenavista V Cuba Weblog”
This post was written by Luis Felipe Rojas as soon as he was released from his 4 day detention on Wednesday, March 28th, as Pope Benedict XVI was heading out of Cuba. I was detained on Saturday, March 24th at 8 AM. I had just left my house to buy bread for my children, and … Continue reading “104 Hours in the Darkness / Luis Felipe Rojas”
The news of the arrests of more than fifty Human Rights activists throughout the entire country has only further confirmed the violent nature of the regime which governs my country. Some people had illusions. Once again, those detained and beaten in their own homes were peaceful dissidents and their families. No voluntary actions, little solidarity … Continue reading “Dungeons and Physical Blows on Patriotic Anniversaries / Luis Felipe Rojas”
In my house in Mantilla, Christmas Eve was always a feast of family and friends. It was the most anticipated date and for days ahead of time we started the preparations, buying nougat, marzipan, figs, walnuts, hazelnuts, chestnuts, wine, cider and cheese. We looked for black beans and soft yucca, and well-threshed rice. The pig … Continue reading “Memories of Christmas Eve / Fernando Dámaso”
14ymedio, Havana, February 10, 2024 — On Friday, the Foundation for Human Rights in Cuba included on its list of Cuban Repressors the Cuban diplomat Fidel Ajuria Domínguez, third consul of the Island in Milan (Italy), for assaulting the activist Avana de la Torre. The event, recorded in a video, occurred on February 7, during … Continue reading “The Cuban Consul Who Assaulted Activists in Milan Is on the Blacklist of ‘Repressors’”
14ymedio, Havana, January 5, 2024 — “Fresh currency.” For more than ten years that has been the slogan of the Mariel Special Development Zone (ZEDM). Its directors, senior Cuban officials and foreign investors bluntly admit it in “Prow to the Future,” a documentary taped using Geocuba drones and accompanied by an original score from the … Continue reading “Cuban TV Documentary on Mariel Masters the Art of Turning Setbacks into Victories”
14ymedio, Havana, 24 December 2023 — If instead of choosing faces, at the end of 2023 we had compiled the objects that best represent Cubans this year, we would have included in the list a suitcase, some police handcuffs, a baseball, a judge’s gavel, a keyboard, a microphone and graffiti on some facade. Every presence … Continue reading “Cuban Faces of 2023: The 14 Faces That Marked the Year 2023 in Cuba”
14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 30 May 2023 — The Cuban regime behaves like a violent husband who, after destroying his partner’s face, swears he did it out of love. They, the ones with slogans about death and clubs studded with nails, are now the “Care Bears”. Díaz-Canel, after giving his abhorrent combat order, dons … Continue reading “An Unfinished Essay on Hate in Cuba”
14ymedio, Havana, 30 May 2022 — Cries of “libertad” [freedom] crept in on more than one occasion during Carlos Varela’s performance this Sunday at the Havana World Music Festival, at the Ciudad Deportiva Coliseum in Havana. The audience chanted the word at two moments, first when he finished singing Foto de familia, and later when he … Continue reading “Audience Shouts ‘Freedom’ During Carlos Varela Concert in Havana’s Ciudad Deportiva Coliseum”
14ymedio, Havana, 14 November 2021 — A few hours before the Civic March for Change, called for this Monday in Cuba by the Archipiélago group, State Security intensifies its siege against activists, independent journalists and ordinary citizens. Daniela Rojo, mother of two young children, moderator of the platform in networks from Guanabacoa, Havana, and who was … Continue reading “Cuban Political Police Multiply Arrests of Activists Before 15 November (15N)”
14ymedio, Yaiza Santos, Madrid, 27 May 2021 — The desperate war of songs unleashed by the Cuban Government after the release of the song Patria y Vida, which since February has added more than five million views on YouTube and which immediately became an opposition slogan inside and outside the Island, has gone from pathos to perversity with the theme that celebrates … Continue reading “The Cuban Regime is Not Afraid of Any Song”
14ymedio, Havana, 4 March 2021 — Sandro Castro, the grandson of former Cuban ruler Fidel Castro, apologized this Thursday for a video in which he was driving a Mercedes Benz. In the filming, which generated an avalanche of criticism, he was seen driving at 87 miles per hour and bragging about the vehicle that he now says belongs to … Continue reading “Sandro Castro Apologizes for the Video Where He Was Driving a Mercedes Benz”
14ymedio, 23 January 2018 — It’s two o’clock in the morning and on San Carlos Street in Cienfuegos all you can hear are the crickets. For Jesús, it’s a late night like any other. He retired from his job as a bus driver almost a decade ago, and at 75 he has enough energy to take … Continue reading “"I’ll Die As I Lived: Standing in Line"”
14ymedio, Luz Escobar, Havana, 26 November 2017 — In the Havana neighborhood of La Timba a teenager loudly sings Latin trap song that causes a stir among young Cubans: “You are not in control here, silence/Pay attention you evil woman.” The rhythm is gaining ground on the Island with its lyrics charged with misogyny and gender … Continue reading “"You Are Not in Control Here," the Refrain that Silences Women”
Cubanet, Luis Cino Alvarez, Havana, 9 February 2017 — Try as I might—to avoid being a bore and accused of holding a grudge against the boy—I cannot leave Harold Cárdenas, the ineffable blogger at La Joven Cuba, in peace, I just can’t. And the fault is his own, because the narrative he makes out of … Continue reading “Too Young for the Party and Too Old for the Communist Youth / Cubanet, Luis Cino Alvarez”
