Human Rights Watch reports Clampdown on Artists, Journalists in Cuba. Artists Demand Release of Detained Dissident Artist Hamlet Lavastida.

How you can take action.

Cuban artist Hamlet Lavastida jailed

Taken from CubaBrief

The Castro regime is engaging in a systematic crackdown on Cuban artists and journalists, but Cuba's nascent civil society is responding in a civic-nonviolent manner and seeking international support.

"Over 140 Cuban intellectuals and cultural figures, including Tania Bruguera and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, have signed an open letter demanding the release of artist Hamlet Lavastida, detained in Havana this weekend upon his return from a residency at Künstlerhaus Bethanien in Berlin. The artist is currently held at Villa Marista, the notorious maximum-security prison known for holding political prisoners," reported Valentina Di Liscia in her July 1, 2021 HYPERALLERGIC article "Artists Demand Release of Dissident Artist Detained in Cuba" that was updated on July 2nd with an expanded list of signers to the open letter. The letter reproduced along with Di Liscia's article states, “we condemn the criminalization of Hamlet Lavastida by the Cuban government. He is a Cuban citizen and artist who has done nothing more than exercise his constitutional right to express himself.”

There is an open petition circulating that is available for your signature demanding the release of Hamlet Lavastida. Please sign it and share with others. Indifference has allowed this regime to operate with impunity for too long.

On June 30, 1961 Fidel Castro gave his speech to [Cuba's] intellectuals where he summed up the limits of artistic expression: 'Within the revolution, everything; outside of it, nothing.' Sixty years later and this totalitarian view continues to be imposed on the arts and journalism in Cuba.

El régimen cubano ha detenido a la curadora de arte Carolina Barrero Ferrer.

Hace 3 días que estaba con vigilancia policial y sin acceso a internet.

Exigimos su liberación inmediata. pic.twitter.com/6KoA4zqOXK

— Human Rights Watch (@hrw_espanol) July 2, 2021

Cuban art curator Carolina Barrero Ferrer was under police surveillance for 3 days with internet access cut off, and was arrested on July 1, 2021 and remains in detention.  

"The Cuban government is committing systematic human rights abuses against independent artists and journalists," said Human Rights Watch on June 30, 2021 as the internationally recognized human rights NGO "released a video on the abuses." According to Human Rights Watch, "in recent months, Cuban authorities have jailed and prosecuted several artists and journalists who are critical of the government. Police and intelligence officers have routinely appeared at the homes of other artists and journalists, ordering them to stay there, often for days and even weeks. The authorities have also imposed temporary targeted restrictions on people’s ability to access cell phone data. Singing a song that the government does not like, or reporting the news independently, is enough to get you detained in Cuba,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. “These abuses are not isolated incidents, but rather appear to be part of a plan to selectively silence critical voices.”

The video released by Human Rights watch begins with Luis Eligio D Omni of ProActivo Miami, a Cuban artist who took part in a Zoom conference hosted by the Center for a Free Cuba on June 30th that was moderated by Sebastian Arcos Cazabon and included artists Paquito D'Rivera, Kizzy Macias, and the journalist Norges Rordríguez focused on the intersection of the arts and protest in Cuba. The event is in Spanish and available online.

Cuban artists are expressing long held truths to an international audience. They are breaking through decades of carefully crafted regime propaganda, and the dictatorship is panicking. They are also sending a message to tourists that go to Cuba and treat it as an amusement park that they want to see. This phenomenon has angered many Cubans for many years, but artists have found a way to visualize and communicate it to a non-Cuban audience. 

Art work by Ricky Castillo of #SOSCuba

 

#OTD in 1961 Castro declared to artists and intellectuals 'Within the revolution, everything; outside of it, nothing,' and the regime continues to jail free thinkers today.

Totalitarianism continues in Cuba under Raul Castro.

On June 30, 1961 Fidel Castro gave his speech to [Cuba's] intellectuals where he summed up the limits of artistic expression: 'Within the revolution, everything; outside of it, nothing,' he told intellectuals and artists. Nearly a decade later on April 27, 1971 the case of Heberto Padilla underscored the limits of artistic expression in Cuba.

Index on Censorship described the aftermath of Padilla's interrogation and self-criticism stating, "whatever the reason for his confession, it served as a harbinger of what was to follow: a period known as the Grey Five Years in which dozens of Cuban artists and writers were banished from public life." This was how intellectuals and artists would be dealt with who strayed out of the prescribed limits imposed by the Castro regime. 

The war on artistic freedom is not unique to the Castro regime, or a mistake, but a feature of communist and fascist systems. Totalitarians have had a hostile relationship with the arts, and with artists seeking to control them. In the Soviet Union modern art was declared subversive by Josef Stalin, and socialist realism with an optimistic tone the politically correct style. Artists destroyed or hid their work that did not accord with the new aesthetic. In Nazi Germany, modern art was declared degenerate and a style that mirrored in appearance their Soviet counterparts, and repression was visited upon artists that did not adhere to the official style.

Sixty years after Castro's infamous speech and Cuban artists and intellectuals are persecuted and jailed for advocating for greater political and artistic freedom on the island.

 

Cuban artist Hamlet Lavastida jailed by secret police in Villa Marista.

 

Cuban artist Hamlet Lavastida, "a member of Cuba’s 27N movement of artists, journalists, and activists who advocate for greater political and artistic freedom on the island, was arrested on 26 June after returning to the island from an artist’s residency in Germany, according to 27N members", reported The Art Newspaper on June 28, 2021. "PEN America and PEN International [on June 28, 2021] condemned the detention of Cuban visual artist and activist Hamlet Lavastida, calling his abrupt imprisonment following a residency abroad an unjust, disturbing representation of the alarming government culture of hostility toward dissenting artists in Cuba," declared the organizations that defend free expression in a joint statement.

pic.twitter.com/LfhBWT1kb1

— coco fusco (@cocofusco1960) June 29, 2021

On May 18, 2021 Cuban authorities arrested and detained rapper and activist Maykel Castillo. On June 18th, the one month mark of this arbitrary detention, "PEN America, along with CADAL, the Center for the Opening and Development of Latin America, condemned the Cuban authorities for their arbitrary detention of Castillo and called for his immediate release." Julie Trebault, director of the Artists at Risk Connection (ARC) at PEN America stated, “the fact that Castillo has been kept in prison for more than a month—and that his family, friends, and supporters have been kept in the dark as to his condition and the reasons for his arbitrary detention—is simply unacceptable.”  Today, June 30th marks 36 days disappeared and jailed for saying what he thinks.

37 years ago the 1984 documentary Improper Conduct outlined how Cuban artists that did not conform, or were deemed to be engaged in “extravagant behavior” were sent to work camps or forced into exile by the Castro regime. The repressive nature of the dictatorship has not changed.

Amnesty International is circulating a petition in Spanish for signatures calling on Havana to end its harassment of artists, and today at 7:00pm the San Isidro Movement is calling to Tweet out to free those arrested on Obispo Street with the hashtag #LiberenALosDeObispo with the following statement over Twitter on June 28, 2021 with the attached image.

"No one should be deprived of liberty for defending their rights and expressing themselves in the face of injustice. Let us demand this Wednesday # 30Jun that #LiberenALosDeObispo and all those who have been unjustly detained for defending the rights that the Cuban dictatorship constantly violates."