The Documentary “Worm” Goes Undercover on the Island / Manuel Guerra Perez

In digital format and DVD media, it is alarming part of the population that says it is unaware of the siege of the dissidents.

HAVANA, Cuba – The documentary “Gusano” (Worm), produced by Estado de Sats, is being shared hand-to-hand on DVD and digitally and has generated many reactions among people who are not dissidents – at least openly – in the capital.

The documentary is about the acts of repudiation in Cuba and mainly what happened last December 10-11 outside the Estado de Sats (State of Sats) site, where an event was being held: the First International Meeting on the United Nations Human Rights Covenants. The video has been shared with dissimilar people across the capital regardless of their political persuasion.

The audiovisual shows how the residence of Antonio Rodiles, director of the independent project, is besieged in an act of repudiation organized by the government, where the Ministry of Education (children and adolescents) participates, along with the Ministry of Culture, the Young Communist Union, the National Revolutionary Police and agents from the Department of State Security, all with the aim of neutralizing the event. In the film we see Rodiles being beaten and the arrests of other participants in the independent meeting held by the Cuban dissidence.

“The documentary has been taken to the streets to denounce the government, and show abuses and violations of international rules committed, like using children for repressive acts,” said Ailer Gonzales, Rodiles’s wife and one of the organizers. In the street, Cubanet collected some opinions:

“I didn’t know that this happened in this country, I still don’t understand it,” said Erick Chirino, 24.

“The repression used to block this activity is typical of a dictatorship,” said Yordanis Barceló Silva, 36.

State of Sats is an independent project where artists and dissident thinkers come together on the island, and has been repeatedly besieged by the State Security (the political police). The headquarters is located in the town of Playa in the Cuban capital.

Cubanet, 4 March 2014, Manuel Guerra Pérez