Celebrating the legacy of Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá: honoring a courageous man

Oswaldo Payá honored by Miami, a documentary short premiered, and award announced.

City of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez reads proclamation for Oswaldo Payá Day

On the evening of what would have been Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas's 66th birthday, if he had not been murdered on July 22, 2012, family, friends, and community leaders gathered to celebrate his legacy. City of Miami Mayor Francis Suarez presented a proclamation declaring February 28, 2018 Oswaldo Payá Day in the city.

Proud to announce the release of Witness Project: Rosa María Payá.@RosaMariaPaya is a Cuban freedom fighter and human rights activist, who speaks of her experience with collectivist tyranny. #VictimsofCommunism #Freedom #smocksprotecttheartist https://t.co/ajTuAHqvEj

— Smock Media (@SmocksProtect) February 28, 2018

Hawk Jensen, of Smock Media and the director and lead editor of the documentary short, Witness Project: Rosa María Payá, who explained that the film sought to present the situation in Cuba through a human lens that can be better understood by a wider audience without bombarding them with mountains of statistics and data that they would not be able to absorb. 

Director and lead editor Hawk Jensen, of Smock Media, introduces documentary

 On the same evening the Latin American Network of Youth for Democracy Red Latinoamericana de Jóvenes por la Democracia (RLJD) awarded the Oswaldo Payá Prize: Life and Liberty to Democratic Initiative of Spain and the Americas Iniciativa Democrática de España y las Américas (IDEA) during the same event. Former Caracas mayor, now exiled, Antonio Ledezma was awarded an honorable mention.

A day earlier in Washington, D.C. the plaza in front of the Russian Embassy was renamed after murdered Russian dissident, Boris Nemtsov, and remembered the effort by a bipartisan group of U.S. Senators to rename the street in front of the Cuban Embassy after Oswaldo Payá can move forward tweeted the following.

Now that Russia's embassy in D.C. is located on Boris Nemtsov Plaza, in honor of the late Putin critic murdered under suspicious circumstances. I hope that the bill to make the street in front of the Cuban Embassy Oswaldo Paya Way can be made law. 1 of 2

— John Suarez ن (@johnjsuarez) February 28, 2018

Senators Ted Cruz (R-TX), Marco Rubio (R-FL) & Robert Menendez (D-NJ) introduced legislation (S. 539) renaming the street in front of the Cuban embassy in DC, as “Oswaldo Payá Way,” to honor the opposition leader killed in Cuba on July 22, 2012. https://t.co/liEmJCmyHs 2 of 2

— John Suarez ن (@johnjsuarez) February 28, 2018

Oswaldo Payá was murdered by a regime that feared his civic and nonviolent message that spoke truth to power and endangered their plans for a fraudulent transition that is now underway that seeks to entrench another generation of the Castro dynasty in absolute power in Cuba. The least that one can do is bear witness, demand justice, call for the street in front of the Cuban Embassy to bear his name, and demonstrate solidarity with Cubans seeking to live in freedom.

Cuban punk rockers tear it up at Churchill's

 "It's only rock n roll but it bothers you." - Porno para Ricardo

Porno para Ricardo tearing it up at Churchill's on Saturday night (March 5, 2015)

Cuba's best known punk rock band, Porno para Ricardo, played a blistering set at Churchill's last night in Miami's punk Mecca. They maybe a Havana based band but their anarchic spirit and punk rock attitude fit right in with this South Florida landmark which has hosted everyone from Marilyn Manson and Social Distortion to Dick Dale and Agent Orange.

Porno para Ricardo founded in Cuba has been a fixture there in the music scene since 1998. The lead singer Gorki Águila has paid the price for his critical lyrics being sentenced to four years in prison in 2003 on trumped up charges and got out in 2007. Only to face one year later the charge of "dangerousness" with the potential for another four year prison sentence, but the mobilization of punk rockers and human rights activists around the world and in Cuba succeeded in saving him from another prison sentence in 2008.

However short term arrests, threats and the occasional beating by the secret police still continue. For example in 2015, according to the Danish human rights NGO, Freemuse, Gorki was arrested on three occasions and in one of them beaten up by Castro's agents for demanding the freedom of Cuban artist Daniel Maldonado "El Sexto" who had been jailed for 10 months beginning in December of 2014 for trying carry out a performance art piece critical of the Cuban dictatorship. He was freed in October of 2015 and on March 2, 2016 kicked off an exhibition of his art work on South Beach with his performance art piece and Porno para Ricardo performing a set of their music. However, the concert in Churchills was special because for the first time the entire band (Gorki Águila, Ciro Díaz, Lia Villares, and Renay Kairus) was able to play together outside of Cuba.

If you missed this great performance you have one more chance today at 6pm in Little Havana at Cubaocho Museum and Peforming Arts Center where they will be playing. The band returns to Cuba later this week.

Porno para Ricardo plays Cubaocho Museum and Performing Arts Center (1465 SW 8th Street, Miami FL 33135) today, Sunday, March 6, 2016 at 6:00pm