English Translations of Cubans Writing From the Island
Domesticated reformers and Taliban clash as regime collapses 14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 5 August 2025 — The recent interview with singer and composer Israel Rojas on the program La Sobremesa, on La Joven Cuba (LJC), has sparked intense controversy on both sides of the Cuban political spectrum. For some, it was an attempt to … Continue reading “Israel Rojas, ‘La Joven Cuba’ and the Art of Surviving the Collapse”
Putin’s disregard for Díaz-Canel and preparations for a simultaneous US invasion of Cuba and Venezuela. 14ymedio, Havana, 2 June 2025 — When some YouTubers and computer experts saw the images of the May Day parade published by Cubadebate, they ventured a hypothesis: the University of Computer Sciences had retouched the images of the parade and … Continue reading “Cuba Rumors of May: A Parade Modified by Artificial Intelligence and a Major National Blackout Is Coming”
The Con Filo presenter’s visit to Spanish cities has sparked criticism, ridicule, and a necessary consensus among Cuban exiles. 14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 10 May 2025 — Since Gabriela Fernández Álvarez—a propagandist for the Cuban regime—began her tour of 12 Spanish cities, her rejection by her exiled compatriots has been clear. But the mediocrity … Continue reading “When Propaganda Collides With Freedom”
Only Spaniards loyal to the Cuban regime and Embassy staff were allowed to enter. 14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 5 May 2025 — On Monday, some twenty Cubans heckled Gabriela Fernández Álvarez, host of the pro-government program Con Filo, which airs on Cuban TV, as she left a conference where she gave a talk in … Continue reading “Cubans Are Blocked from Attending Gabriela Fernández’s Talk in Madrid”
The Cuban regime needs to reinforce its news media, diminished by emigration 14ymedio, Havana, 12 October 2024 — In 2020, when the Communication Law that came into force this month was a remote objective of the Cuban legislature, the 226 young people who graduated this Friday had just entered the Faculty of Communication of the … Continue reading “Cuba’s Record Number of 226 Graduates in Communication Will Revive the ‘Battle of Ideas’”
The great Havana pimp was the dandy who dazzled everyone while riding his white braided-tail steed or walking his greyhounds through the streets of the capital 14ymedio, Yunior García Aguilera, Madrid, 23 June 2024 — Yarini has become news again. The great Havana pimp, the most bastard of national heroes, the greatest sex symbol of … Continue reading “Attack Yarini: The Combat Order Is Given”
14ymedio, Madrid, 5 June 2024 — The Cuban Government “officially” presented this Wednesday the Social Communication Law, signed on May 25, one year after it was approved by the National Assembly of People’s Power. The text, included in the Official Gazette with minimal changes with respect to the last draft published, is accompanied by two … Continue reading “The Cuban Regime Signs the Social Communication Law One Year After Approving It”
Independent media in Cuba are the vanguard of the process of building democracy 14ymedio, May 22, 2024 — Being a journalist is not being an activist. Journalism is not called to the ranks of any political party or ideology, but rather to report facts of general interest that prove that they are true, and with … Continue reading “Cuba: The Challenge of Practicing Journalism in a Dictatorship”
Between the 11J protests in 2021 and those of this March there are multiple points in common, as ’14ymedio’ and ‘Yucabyte’ confirmed 14ymedio/Yucabyte, Havana, 21 April 2024 — On March 17, the flood of rumors reached a fever pitch comparable to, though less intense, those of 11 July 2021 (which were quickly baptized ’11J’). Fed … Continue reading “A Flotilla from Miami on March 17, One of Many Rumors from Cuba”
14ymedio, Yunior García, Madrid, 23 March 2024 — On the night of Thursday, January 10, 1929, two scandalously beautiful young people walk down a Mexican street. In a room nearby are photos that some might consider indecent. Not only have they made love until dehydration in every corner of that space for the last four months, but … Continue reading “Who Killed Julio Antonio Mella?”
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, Havana, November 4, 2023 — On Friday, the second day of the Cuban Journalists Union (Upec) congress, the leitmotiv was the word ’crisis’. Crisis of the “socialist press model,” economic crisis of the media and, of course, the deep depression of salaries, the delegates enumerated. The solution to get out of the financial quagmire: … Continue reading “President Diaz-Canel Proposes ‘Making a Revolution’ with Cuban Journalism, Without Giving More Details”
14ymedio, Yunior Garcia Aguilera, Madrid, 4 October 2023 — Those of us who have been a target of the State Security often make two serious mistakes. On the one hand, we overestimate them. They are not the X-Men. They do not have all the latest technology nor are they omnipresent. Their officers come off as … Continue reading “Encounters of the Third Kind with Cuban State Security”
14ymedio, Havana, 28 September 2023 — Joel Suárez Orozco, the former Cuban diplomat who denounced last week, in an interview with journalist Mario Vallejo, the harassment to which State Security had subjected him after abandoning his job in the Cuban mission at the UN, responded to the accusations of “traitor” launched by the official Cuban … Continue reading “‘They Are Afraid That Other Cubans Will Decide To Do the Same as Me: Desert’”
14ymedio, Havana, 18 May 2023 — On Thursday afternoon, computer engineer Iroel Sánchez Espinosa, one of the most extreme voices of Cuban official propaganda, died in Havana at the age of 58. Known for his constant defamation campaigns against dissent and the independent press, so far the cause of his death has not been made … Continue reading “Iroel Sanchez, One of the Most Sectarian Voices of the Cuban Regime, Dies”