Police send thug with hammer to attack artists under seige and on hunger strike

“The limits of tyrants are prescribed by the endurance of those whom they oppose.” -  Frederick Douglass

 

Luis M. Alcantara attacked with a hammer

  

Just learned that Luis Manuel Alcantara, a visual artist and human rights activist, was attacked with a hammer by an unidentified man who broke into the San Isidro Movement's headquarters tonight. This is particularly suspicious because the secret police have blocked neighbors, friends, and family members from reaching them since November 18th.

#ATENCIÓN | Ataque a la sede del Movimiento San Isidro.
Un hombre no identificado, rompió la puerta de la sede y con un martillo hirió en el rostro a @LMOAlcantara La seguridad del estado y la policía uniformada que estaban presentes, no hicieron nada por evitar el ataque. pic.twitter.com/evYPC6ckCS

— Movimiento San Isidro (@Mov_sanisidro) November 22, 2020

A group of artists and intellectuals have been surrounded by the secret police in Havana at the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement since November 15, 2020. They were protesting the arrest on November 9th, and summary trial on  November 11th of their colleague Denis Solís González who was sentenced to eight months in prison for “contempt” (desacato), for speaking critically of a police officer searching his home. Denis is now serving his sentence at Valle Grande, a maximum-security prison just  outside Havana.” Below is a 2018 music video that contains political themes.

On November 18th when it became clear that officials would not allow anyone to deliver them food, and in the early morning hours of that day had used a chemical agent to poison their water supply that nine of them decided to go on hunger strike, and four of them took the additional step to also start a thirst strike. This was done to conserve food and water for those among them in a more vulnerable situation.

Cuban artist Coco Fusco has written an important essay titled "The Sound of Silence" (in Spanish) that asks the critical question: "Where are the Reuters and Associated Press journalists? Why do foreign correspondents seem to ignore the situation?" She adds that "these are extremely relevant questions that deserve serious consideration, and it is high time Cubans asked them publicly."

The San Isidro Movement is a collective of artists created in Old Havana in 2018 in reaction to Decree 349 that obliged artists to formally affiliate with the Ministry of Culture, and to obtain government permission for any of their activities.

Decree 349, signed into law in 2018, further censors artistic expression and according to Cuban artists Tania Bruguera, Coco Fusco, Enrique Risco, Yanelys Nuñez  and human rights defender Laritza Diversent in an open letter restricts "the creativity of the Cuban people and criminalizes independently produced art, limiting the ability to determine who can be an artist to a state institution." Amnesty International issued a report that described this new law as "dystopian."

This blog post closes with a recent music video by one of the hunger strikers and a former prisoner of conscience Maykel "Osorbo" Castillo that translates into English as "What are they going to talk to me about." Indeed, what are the agents of the Castro regime going to talk about when they send in a thug with a hammer to attack an artist on a hunger strike?