Luis Felipe Rojas, 1 February 2016 — This list is not intended to be a “Top Ten,” as is so common on internet publications. The list of names that follows carries the history of the men and women who believe in words and images as a tool of liberation.
The independent journalists that appear below do their work in Cuba under the microscope of the apparatus of repression that we know as State Security.
Most of them suffer arbitrary arrests, they have spent long years in prison, they are violently detained, vilified and — paradoxically — are non-persons in government media. In the case of Jorge Olivera Castillo, he was sentenced to 18 years in prison in the “2003 Black Spring,” but he continues, unrepentant, to do alternative journalism.
Another of those on the list is the blogger Yoani Sanchez who, among numerous international awards, holds the 2008 Ortega y Gasset Prize, given annual by the Spanish newspaper El Pais. Confirming her commitment to the journalism in which she believes, she founded the digital newspaper 14ymedio and 2014.
These are “ordinary” rank-and-file reporters, who get up each morning looking for news and accompany the victims of state bureaucracy — a way of doing journalism that has already gone on for three decades in the country, under the derision that arises from within the regime’s prisons.
I wanted to include here those who have specialized in the genre of opinion, thus helping to clarify what goes on within the country, but also preserving the sharp wit that has been missing for years in the journalism published on the island. The blame for this drought in opinion pieces is due to the jaws that are greased every morning in the offices of the Ideological Department of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba.
Good health for free and uncensored journalism!
Here is the list:
Regina Coyula. Blog “La Mala Letra”. BBC Mundo. La Habana.
Iván García. Diario de Cuba. Martinoticias. Diario Las Américas. La Habana.
Augusto C. San Martín. Cubanet. La Habana.
Serafín Morán. Cubanet. La Habana.
Ricardo Sánchez T. Cubanet. Bayamo, Granma.
Miriam Celaya. 14yMedio. La Habana.
Alejandro Tur V. IWP. Cienfuegos.
Juan G. Febles. Dtor Semanario Primavera Digital. La Habana.
Yoani Sánchez. Directora Diario 14yMedio. La Habana.
Iván Hernández Carrillo. Twittero. @ivanlibre Matanzas.
Yuri Valle. Reportero audiovisual. La Habana.
Jorge Olivera Castillo. Columnista opinión. Cubanet. La Habana.
Luz Escobar. 14yMedio. La Habana.
Luis Cino A. PD. Cubanet. La Habana.
Roberto de J. Guerra P. Dtor Agenc. Hablemos Press. La Habana.
Ernesto Pérez Chang. Cubanet. La Habana.
María Matienzo. Diario de Cuba. La Habana.
Bernardo Arévalo P. ICLEP. Aguada de Pasajeros. Cienfuegos.
Roberto Quiñonez H. Cubanet. Guantánamo.
Alberto M. Castelló. Cubanet. Puerto Padre. Las Tunas.
