Oswaldo Paya Sardiñas: I Say Freedom!

"We say that what you have to do is give the vote to the Cuban people." - Oswaldo Paya Sardiñas

Oswaldo Paya Sardiñas

The following is a response by opposition leader Oswaldo Paya Sardiñas to an Associated Press article that appeared on September 23, 2011 titled Cuba's opposition tries to plot fresh course. It coincides with a blog entry analyzing the same article by Cuban dissident blogger, Miriam Celaya, which is critical of the news bureaus based in Cuba. It appears that Paul Haven and Andrea Rodríguez hit a nerve. Oswaldo Paya's response is important and should be paid close attention because he is offering an overview of the situation in the island that is speaking truth to power. It is also implicitly and at times explicitly criticizing all who are too timid to speak out. Sadly, this appears to include some who should know better.

On September 20 the reporter, Andrea Rodriguez, of the Associated Press agency, visited me at my house for my opinion on the subject of the dissidence. During the conversation the journalist gave her own opinions and carried out five questions. Days later the AP published the information on the subject in which only appear a few references to sentences emitted by me in that conversation.

The conversation in my house was filmed with the consent of the visiting journalist with a camera of my family.

The subject is topical and important for the nonviolent opposition and for Cubans. I believe it is of interest to international public opinion. It is my right to publish my own opinions made on that occasion but the full extent to which the public can truly know and not just a micro sample as published by the Associated Press.

This written transcript and edited video made public only contains my words and not the questions and opinions of the journalist. Thank you very much. Speaking to you was Oswaldo Paya Sardiñas.

Edited Transcript:

OSWALDO PAYÁ: What you just said is the description of the doctrine of disqualifying the dissidents based on those alleged changes, it is as if the anti-apartheid movement in South Africa continued today, but it seems that it makes no sense.

Anyway, in order to answer the question of what the situation of the dissident movement is we need to talk about what the people’s current situation is. There is a majority of poor people who are increasingly poor, a majority of exploited people in a country where the monthly salary only buys you three meals and there is no chance to improvement

A Cuban citizen cannot enter and leave the country, cannot express himself freely in the street. Why do you talk as if there was no communism or the CDR and the state security services did not monitor citizens, or there was no syndicated or communist party in each work center and academic institution in order to control and threaten people, or there was no discrimination in the access to power based on political and ideological grounds? Can the Cuban people finally freely choose their leaders in elections where there are several candidates for congress or the government?

What are we talking about? Is Cuba already a democracy? People have not heard about that.

Have economic changes already taken place in Cuba? Which ones?

While the poor sell discs or fried food, the heirs of the regime who own luxurious restaurants and live in beautiful palaces. There is a subclass generated by the oligarchy and its members have no future.

Let’s talk about the prospects for the people of Cuba, who do not know what is going to happen with their oil or with the development of the strip of the Mariel, and their growing distress because nobody can make life plans.

Therefore, the dissident community, although silenced, although victims of many maneuvers against it in which many sectors participate to silence it, and say “you´re not worthy anymore”. There are political prisoners in Cuba; the son of a member of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) was sentenced to 12 years in jail for the sole reason of being the son of a MCL member. His name is Yosvany Melchor Rodriguez and he was artificially condemned in Santiago de Cuba on November 30, 2010, after his mother was threatened by state security forces for not wanting to cooperate against us.

Therefore, the culture of fear has not disappeared, the order of the absence of civil and political rights. What is the change we are talking about? So far there is a promise that people are going to be able to buy and sell cars, but that is only a promise. Who is going to be able to buy and sell cars? Those in the upper class, not the majority of people. They are selling a virtual reality as if it was real change, and that is fraud. It is outrageous.

In Pinochet’s Chile, even in Batista’s times we could buy and sell cars, maybe even in South Africa during apartheid.

What do they mean? That we cubanitos just need the promise, not the fact, that one day we will be able to buy and sell cars, sell fried food or discs? And they say that change has already started in Cuba.

Look, that’s a source of tensions, that’s a joke, a mega-fraud for the Cuban people. We, Cubans, have the right to have rights. Our movement, along with many other dissidents, launched “The People’s Path,” where we say that changes are rights and not “maneuvers” and rights mean changes in the law in order to guarantee freedom of expression, the right to travel, to own companies, to freely express opinions in the media; those rights that are being claimed in many countries around the world by the people and by the new generations.

And the right to free elections. Why are there not free elections?

What do they mean? Were these people born to be ruled for 52 years by Fidel Castro and now 50 more years by Raúl Castro, the new oligarchy and their descendants? That’s the source of inequality, the poverty of the majority, the separation of families, the anxiety and fear that the Cuban people suffer.

The people of Cuba are entitled to live in dignity and to build their own projects.

What are they going to tell us now?

Why the dissidents?

For this, look at Cuba and tell me if the dissident movement is necessary or not. That’s why they want to silence it, because we are the only ones who are radically demanding rights, freedom and free elections, in a context where everything is set up to hand Cuba out as a cake; to give it away and auction it to the new oligarchy, who says that you have to give a vote of confidence to Raúl Castro. We say that what you have to do is give the vote to the Cuban people.

We had never faced such danger, such outrage and humiliation, and that’s why the dissident movement makes sense.

JOURNALIST:

OSWALDO PAYÁ: That is a misconception, we do have a project. I think you can find the Varela Project in the AP files, and the Transitional Program must be in the AP files as well.

There is a plot to say that the opposition has no project. You received “the people’s path”. How can you say that we don’t have a project? We have a project, we have proposals, and we have proposed changes in the electoral law, in the law of associations. In “The people’s path” we proposed a national dialogue and a road map which signifies dialogue in a spirit of reconciliation and changes in the laws. For instance, the creation of an electoral commission constituted by representatives from the opposition, the government and the Church, and a similar commission to regulate and facilitate access to the media.

Yes, we do have a project, we do have proposals. You don’t see us more openly because they repress and persecute us. Give us 15 minutes on Mesa Redonda. Let’s have the foreign press in Cuba do this more often. Don't just take our opinion. Travel across Cuba and you will see how there are repressed activists, who are persecuted and beaten up. We are in the midst of fierce repression and it is very unfair to say that the dissident movement is invisible. The dissident movement is out there and people know it, they know it in every neighborhood, in every town, in the countryside.

There is tremendous interest in saying that there is no dissident movement, that it is fragmented, divided, that it has no program. But that is false.

That is what the government needs to sustain the idea of the conspiracy against the people of Cuba at this moment.

Now that the military oligarchy, with the complicity of most states—European, North American and from Latin America—decide to give a vote of confidence to Raúl Castro. That’s why the dissident movement is so bothered, because we are saying that which is radical, and that is: Cuba continues to be a state of “no rights”, a state where citizens’ dignity is not respected and where the poor have no voice even to say they are poor.

JOURNALIST:

OSWALDO PAYÁ: Are you sure that during the Chilean military dictatorship the dissident movement did not have air time on the Catholic radio? I know they did. Besides, there was a time when international society pressured the regime and was supportive as it has never been with Cuba. In Cuba, they are looking for justifications to disqualify the dissident movement.

First of all, there are not three ways. There is only one way, and that’s how we have established it in “The people’s path.” Those who demonstrate in the streets signed the “The People’s Path,” the most important bloggers also signed it. There are different styles, different dimensions but you cannot say they have no project, no.

Talk to José Daniel Ferrer Garcia, who is encouraging demonstrations in Santiago de Cuba with great courage. He does have a project and I know it well.

It is easy to say that they are a trail of people. But no, they are people who have the courage and the dignity to take to the streets at the expense of much suffering for his family. That’s why they are persecuted.

What do we need to ask ourselves is why are they beaten up?

Where in the world does a woman dressed in white walking down the street constitute a provocation? Only in a fascist-communist regime like this.

Therefore the victim gets criticized because no one dares to criticize the executioner. There is a real “moral inversion,” in what the foreign media, intellectual circles, ecclesiastical circles, diplomats and politicians are doing against the people of Cuba and against the dissident right now. They judge the persecuted, the poor, those who are silenced, but they do not dare to judge the government. And what the government needs to be told is what we say in “the People’s Path”. Hold free elections; change the law so Cubans can express themselves, so they can choose. But what they want is to keep their privileges while they say that everything has been agreed upon. This joke will go very wrong because the people of Cuba are not stupid, and the majority are still poor and distressed.

But the worst is that the foreign media, intellectual circles, ecclesiastical circles, and entire states are accompanying the Cuban government in setting up this fraud, this joke that will bring only confrontation and pain to Cubans, and that is keeping the majority of the Cuban people silent and gagged while this virtual scenario for change is being created.

We are trying to draw attention to this but also demanding and saying that, after 52 years of totalitarianism, we want what all peoples want: freedom, rights, and free elections. The opposition is focusing on that direction: fundamental rights so citizens can organize and express themselves, and free elections.

They are telling us that we don’t connect with the people. Who does connect with them? Let’s ask the people in a referendum.

And those 15 minutes on television or ten minutes on radio are indeed important, that’s why we don’t get them, because they are scared of the truth. And that’s not because we are ourselves the possessors of the truth, but the truth that the people want a different life and we want to tell everyone who has relations with Cuba (and I say this with great responsibility) that cooperating with this lie and fraud does not help Cubans, it just helps them sink.

Some people make comparisons with Libya and Egypt, and they wonder why Cubans do not go out on the streets. I will never call on Cubans to take to the streets because I am convinced that Cubans will never go out on the streets because someone tells them to do so, and I am convinced that the day they go out in the streets no one is going to put them back in their homes with fear or terror.

But while we are demanding people’s rights, we do not want intervention for Cuba; neither do we want to become a new Libya, nor allowing the slaughter of Cubans so they can then come and bomb and make a pact with a repressive general.

Look, we want this “people’s path,” which is peaceful, transparent, and addresses the root of the problem by providing the solution: let’s give Cubans rights and voice, let’s launch a national dialogue, let’s hold free elections. But let’s avoid the convergent roads that are communism, the mega-fraud, the lie and the outrage that the Cuban people are suffering while an oligarchy which are the new rich makes pacts with the rich of the world, and of the savage capitalism that will eventually lead to a confrontation because they are marginalizing and doing to the people of Cuba what they did in 1898. I am saying this passionately because that’s how I feel.

As a Cuban, I am not a tourist or someone who is living in a glass case, I eat in a workers’ canteen, I relate to doctors, nurses, patients. My coworkers, whom I love and I’m proud to work with, despite having the state security watching me. I walk down these streets with my colleagues and friends, my neighbors. I know how Cubans feel, and they want a new life, they want freedom, they want rights. Unfortunately, they can only think of getting out of Cuba, no matter how—as a missionary, collaborator, visitor, invitee or refugee. But why? Exile has always been a punishment to Cubans.

I am not going to make a speech, I’m just telling you that up until now we have suffered totalitarianism, but now we are suffering the biggest attempt of fraud in all this time, which is imposing an image of change without real rights. We will not allow it; we will continue to demand rights, even if they say that the dissident movement, the opposition, does not exist.

But we claim...

JOURNALIST:

OSWALDO PAYÁ: In the first place, the state security is a machine of terror against the citizens, you know what Cubans commonly call state security – place your ear – here comes the Gestapo, and this is a popular word, they know that I did not invent it, but in something it seems. State security is a factory of lies and it is ridiculous and in addition rather mediocre professionally, lying, catch a crook or agent, infiltrate him in the opposition, in independent journalism to tell lies, to sabotage civic work, for bad information and then to say that this is what the dissidence does.

They did not have nor wanted the delicacy to do this well, that’s to say that the actual state security invents an independent journalist and he is a liar under the guise of an independent journalist, the liar is state security two times over, for inventing the fake independent journalist and for making that journalist tell lies, this is what they are used to and this is what they do.

JOURNALIST:

OSWALDO PAYÁ: In the dissidence, a face, frankly none, not one because what they are saying is the weakness that the regime has, to be able to discredit us; they must invent figures, groups and situations that are not found naturally in the dissident movement.

It is a revelation of mediocrity, of falsehood and even more, immorality without shame. Why instead don’t we talk about the Varela Project and why not talk about the Heredia Project on television? Why do we not talk about the People’s Path? Why are we not permitted to explain to the citizens what we actually believe and want? I know, because the people when they read the Varela Project, when they read the Law of National Reconciliation and Against Discrimination, they will have the courage or not of signing it, additionally we respect them, but they say this is what should be, and until the revolutionaries say it, the soldiers say it, because the regime has trapped the whole country, they have trapped up to those who are ministers and generals and us with passion but with no class hatred and no hate of any class, with a very profound peace, we are saying to them, don’t act against history any longer, let the next generations have their own lives, have your own life, we forgive and look forward to build a new society, keeping that which is positive, but with free men and women.

They are infatuated arrogant people who in continuing to maintain the people as if they were their property, after having devoured the lives of three generations. Enough, enough, and I believe that this is a cry that is in the hearts of many Cubans, many Cubans that do not want Cuba to be a Libya, the majority, that don’t want an intervention, but that do not want to continue living like this, we want a new life, and listen to me, if we are looking for a word for this new life, I would say it is freedom!

How to Blog by Yoani Sanchez

@yoanisanchez #Cuba #GY Concerned girl that is Yoani Sanchez misbehaved before her visit. Papa State punishes her with not allowing her to travel :-(

Presentación de mi libro "Un blog para hablar al mundo" from Yoani Sanchez on Vimeo.

Presentation of my book, “A Blog to Speak to the World.”

Translator’s note: In this video Yoani is speaking to a presentation of her book taking place in Madrid, which she is currently participating in via Twitter and telephone. [as of 3:00 PM Havana time, 21 June]

(Above text and video taken from Generation Y and original Spanish text available here.

Chapter 5 of the Citizens' Reasons: The Alternative Blogosphere

Razones Ciudadanas 5 from Yoani Sanchez on Vimeo.

Chapter 5 of the Citizens' Reasons, this time dedicated to the alternative Cuban blogosphere. The debate centers around the evolution, characteristics and future prospects of this civic phenomenon. Among the guests in the studio are Claudia Caudelo, Yoani Sánchez, Orlando Luis Pardo, Luis Felipe Rojas and Reinaldo Escobaras moderator. In addition brief interventions by more than 15 alternative bloggers also appear.

The Children of the Revolution and the 6th Communist Party Congress in Cuba

"They make a desert, they call it peace." - Tacitus, The Agricola


Address on March 31, 2011 to the Committee for Free Trade Union Conference on Cuba



The late leftist Argentine writer Julio Cortázar made an interesting observation in his book Around the Day in Eighty Worlds: "All profound distraction opens certain doors. You have to allow yourself to be distracted when you are unable to concentrate."

Fidel Castro inaugurated the Fifth Congress of the Cuban Communist Party on October 8th 1997. These Congresses were supposed to be held every five years. Its been over 13 years and now in a few days the Sixth Cuban Communist Party Congress will be inaugurated with great fanfare. Raul Castro announced the congress in November of 2010 along with "general guidelines" to be approved at the Congress.

This party congress will re-arrange some of the window dressing of the dictatorship in the economic order to preserve its brutal nature but it also serves another important function and that is to create distraction and buy time. The first demonstration of this is that the discussion of internal party issues and leadership renewal will not be discussed until the end of 2012 at a National Conference of the Cuban Communist Party. The party congress will only address economic issues. There are a number of factors for the timing but will touch on three and focus on the third:

1. The main export out of Cuba is nickel and has suffered a fall in prices combined with rising food prices internationally and an inefficient state-run economy that has forced the dictatorship to cut imports over the past two years. In September of 2010 Raul Castro announced plans to lay off one million state employees.
2. Unwelcome, for the dictatorship, increased international scrutiny on human rights in Cuba following the death of Orlando Zapata Tamayo, the hunger strike by Guillermo Fariñas Hernández and the brutalization of the Ladies in White raised the profile of Cuba's nonviolent democratic opposition movement.
3. Cuban youth are unhappy, disillusioned and want change.

The regime has sought through their official bloggers and through their government daily Juventud Rebelde as highlighted in its November 13, 2010 article titled "Las líneas del futuro" [The Lines of the future] in which Cuban youth are called to participate and that their opinions and contributions will be greatly appreciated in the rich debate. ( Is it possible that the title also offers an ironic look into the future with the continuing long lines of the past?)

As mentioned earlier the last party congress was over 13 years ago and this presents an opportunity to divide the youth between those who having lived through the process and have no illusions and those undergoing it for the first time that will participate in the gatherings leading up to the congress with the illusion that it will make a difference.

Children born under the dictatorship old enough to remember the previous party congress have a different perspective and through cyberspace are expressing themselves. For example Yoani Sanchez, old enough to remember her first political activities as a young pioneer in the 1970s shouting insults at President Carter has written thoughtful essays on the subject of the congress on her blog Generation Y.

On November 10, 2010 in her essay, The Art of Speaking Without Speaking, Yoani offers a concise description of the meeting's guidelines:

The Draft Guidelines for the Communist Party’s VI Congress is a good exercise to sharpen our senses, a model example to evaluate the practice of speaking without speaking, which is what state discourse is here.

Its more than thirty pages of text contain only economic proposals, more appropriate for the Ministry of Finance than for the compass of a political party. It’s true that it lacks the language of the barricade, resolving everything based on slogans, but it suffers from being a sugar-coated list of what could be done if the system really worked. For those who think my skepticism is exaggerated, take a look at the points from past congresses and check to see how many of them really came to pass.

Claudia Cadelo wrote in her blog Octavo Cerco (The Eighth Circle) in her December 8, 2010 essay What Changes?:

With great effort I’ve managed to read the eleven pages of “The Transformations Required in the Public Health System.” I have the impression that if we took out all the ideological apologies -- such as, “the direction of our glorious Party,” or this one, “the immense historic responsibility we have for the future of the fatherland” -- the text would only be three pages. Sadly, the ability to synthesize has never been a virtue of those who govern us.

To make matters worse, in the meat of it there’s not much there, other than a shifting and rearranging of equipment and personnel from here to there, the well-known and prioritized “internationalist” work, and a strange insinuation that there is a surplus of doctors -- I say it’s strange because it’s true but I didn’t expect them to say it.

In another blog entry titled These Peculiar Guidelines, less than a month later on January 10, 2011 Claudia writes:

But people are tired. People stopped recognizing socialism, even in books, long ago, because the history of the Revolution seems too much like the history of a 19^th century capitalist monopoly. In parliament no one has been classified as “unqualified” or “unreliable” (as they have been on the layoff lists), and not one delegate to the National Assembly has been laid off under the concept of inflated payrolls. It is in the neighborhoods where 500,000 CDR members are going to be left “unoccupied.” So the spirit of the meeting is tense; even the poster announcing it reminds us: “Attendance will be taken.”

Although there is an attempt to strictly control the content of these meetings people are beginning to lose their fear and are frustrated. Later in the same essay Claudia describes what she has heard concerning the tension at this gathering:

My friends tell me (the meeting in my neighborhood hasn’t happened yet) that things got hot. One retiree said it was time to see young people leading the country, another said he was tired of discussing planning and reforms that never changed anything, a lady announced she is retiring because as long as they aren’t talking about raising wages they can’t count on her, and the Party member murmured, ending the meeting, which would be the last time the core would be called together. Raul Castro’s government has reached out to a people who are tired and skeptical, and bored with seeing the same movie over and over.

In her January 31, 2011 essay titled "Unanimity" Yoani Sanchez describes one of the regime organized meetings prior to the congress to discuss the document:

He cleared his throat before explaining why they were meeting, in the sober drama that is rarely seen anymore. In his hands he held, like a script, the blue booklet with the guidelines for the Sixth Communist Party Congress, and behind the table those present included municipal and provincial officials. Before yielding the floor, he stressed that they should stick to what was written on these pages and only discuss economics. He stressed this last word to emphasize it, to ensure that they didn’t claim their right to “free association” or demand that they be allowed “to freely enter and leave the country.” E-CO-NO-MICS, he stressed again, widening his eyes and raising his eyebrows to emphasize it again, while staring directly at the most troublesome employees.

Later on in the same essay Yoani Sanchez describes the aftermath of the meetings and its significance for the April congress:

The next day the workplace had returned to its routine. A mechanic who had been sitting very close to the president no longer remembered a single one of the guidelines. The girl from the warehouse summed up the discussion of the previous afternoon for her friends with a simple, “Ah… more of the same.” And the manager’s chauffeur skeptically shrugged his shoulders when a colleague asked what had happened. Many experienced that day as sample of what will happen in the Conference Center next April, a sneak preview of the Cuban Communist Party Congress. In just a few months they will see the same staging unfold on their TV screens, but this time it was they themselves who were the actors, raising their hands in unanimity before the stern gaze of the director.

In the case of the Castro regime over the past 52 years the ability to engage frequently in profound distractions has opened the door to its own survival. Unfortunately, Cuba observers all too often have followed Cortázar's advice and allowed themselves to be distracted when unable to concentrate. The same phenomenon was also seen among Kremlinologists who never saw the collapse of the Soviet Union as a possibility.

When the dictatorship announces the layoff of a million state employees because they can no longer pay them they call it reform and a good part of academia goes along with it. At the beginning of 2011 the regime began to lay off workers. When people power movements erupted in Egypt and Tunisia capturing the imagination of the world the regime slowed down and suspended the layoffs out of fear of creating conditions for their own demise.

If there is one lesson over the past 52 years it is that political considerations have priority over economic considerations in order to preserve the regime. When it is convenient to decentralize in order to survive the regime will do that as it did in the early 1990s and as it appears to be doing today. At the same time when things improve and regime survival depends on the re-centralization of economic control at the expense of economic growth as was the case in the late 1990s and through the 2000s they will do that as well, but the important consideration is that the Cuban people are tired of this regime and want change.

Thank you very much.

Dania Virgen García : A victim of a politically motivated prosecution

"Things in Cuba are not well at all, but I am going to continue this struggle to the death or until whatever they want happens; I will continue to support the Ladies in White, even if they continue to beat us, because what they want is for us to be afraid and we are not going to allow that to happen." -Dania Virgen García (blogger, independent journalist sentenced to 20 months in prison)

Taken from her blog http://daniavirgengarcia.blogspot.com/

According to The Miami Herald she was arrested, tried, and sentenced to 20 months in prison in less than two days.

Reporters Without Borders offers its own analysis regarding her arrest:

The crackdown on independent journalists is intensifying, with three cases of journalists being jailed, arrested or summoned in the past few days. The journalist who has been jailed is Dania Virgen García of Primavera Digital and CubaNet, who was given a 20-month sentence on 23 April. Her case brings the number of journalists imprisoned in Cuba to 25.

Arrested at her home in the Havana suburb of San Miguel del Padrón on 22 April, García was tried and convicted in less than 48 hours and was taken to the women’s prison known as the “Manto Negro” (Black Veil) because of its bad reputation. The regime’s haste to “pass justice” appears to have been due to the municipal elections held on 25 April

The charges on which García, 41, was convicted have yet to be confirmed, but she supported and participated in the marches staged by the Ladies in White, a group formed by the mothers, wives and sisters of political prisoners whose activities have been suppressed by the authorities in recent days.

IAPA rejects sudden judgment against blogger Diana Virgen García in Cuba

Condemns prison sentence, arrest of a second journalist and calls for end to repression

Miami (April 26, 2010)—The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) today denounced the conviction in Cuba of an independent blogger and the arrest of another journalist in separate incidents last week and called for the immediate release of all imprisoned journalists and an end to repression by the government.

On April 22nd Cuba’s political police arrested independent journalist and blogger Diana Virgen García (http://daniavirgengarcia.blogspot.com) whose blog, launched in January, reports on the violence and repression against other independent reporters on the Caribbean island. García is also a human rights activist who openly supports the Ladies in White movement, a group that the government has suppressed and prevented from demonstrating on several occasions.

García was taken to court the day after her arrest and sentenced to one year and eight months in prison on charges that had not yet been made known. The president of the Center for Human Rights and Democracy Brigade 2506, Segundo Miranda, brought the fact to light, while Cuba’s official press – the newspapers Granma and Juventud Rebelde – did not report on it.

IAPA President Alejandro Aguirre, editor of the Miami, Florida, Spanish-language newspaper Diario Las Américas, declared, “We continue seeing the same story of restriction of freedom of expression in Cuba,” adding, “while we wait for word on the fate of the famous blogger Yoani Sánchez, who was harassed on a number of occasions, other women and men are being persecuted by a government that threatens, restricts, censors, tries and convicts offhandedly.”

With the imprisonment of García, the only woman to date, there are 26 journalists behind bars in Cuba. Many are in poor health, a fact which has set off protests calling for their release; independent reporter Guillermo Fariñas, who has been on hunger strike for several weeks, is among those held prisoner.

Arrested in Holguín on the morning of April 24 was Yosvani Anzardo Hernández, editor of the independent newspaper Candonga. His wife, Lourdes María Yen Rodríguez, reported that two State Security officers came to their home in the town of San Germán and arrested her husband. The family does not know the motive for his arrest. In September 2009 Hernández spent 15 days in jail after his home was raided and his electronic equipment seized.

The chairman of the IAPA’s Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Robert Rivard, editor of the San Antonio Express-News, Texas, repeated the organization’s call for the unconditional release of imprisoned journalists, in particular those who for humanitarian reasons should have their rights respected.

The IAPA lists the following 26 imprisoned journalists: Convicted in 2003 Ricardo González Alfonso, Víctor Rolando Arroyo, Normando Hernández González, Julio César Gálvez, Adolfo Fernández Sainz, Omar Rodríguez Saludes, Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez, Mijaíl Barzaga Lugo, Pedro Argüelles Morán, Pablo Pacheco Ávila, Alfredo Pulido López, Fabio Prieto Llorente, Iván Hernández Carrillo, José Luis Garía Paneque, Juan Carlos Herrera, Miguel Galván Gutiérrez, José Ubaldo Izquierdo, Omar Ruiz Hernández, Léster Luis González Pentón and Alfredo Felipe Fuentes; in 2006 Alberto Gil Triay and Raymundo Perdigón Brito; in 2007 Ramón Velázquez Toranso and Oscar Sánchez Madan; in 2009 Alberto Santiago Du Bouchet and in 2010 Dania Virgen García.

The IAPA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the defense and promotion of freedom of the press and of expression in the Americas. It is made up of more than 1,300 print publications from throughout the Western Hemisphere. For more information please go to http://www.sipiapa.org

http://www.sipiapa.com/v4/index.php?page=cont_comunicados&seccion=detalles&id=4366&idioma=us


La SIP rechaza juicio sumarísimo contra bloguera en Cuba

Protesta por su encarcelamiento, la detención de otro periodista y pide el cese de la represión

Miami (26 de abril de 2010).- La Sociedad Interamericana de Prensa (SIP) expresó su rechazo por la condena en Cuba de una bloguera independiente y el arresto de otro periodista, en sucesos ocurridos la semana pasada, exigiendo asimismo la liberación inmediata de los periodistas encarcelados y el cese de la represión.

El 22 de abril la policía política de Cuba detuvo a la periodista independiente y bloguera Dania Virgen García (http://daniavirgengarcia.blogspot.com) en cuyo blog, iniciado en enero, informa sobre hechos de violencia y represión que afecta a otros periodistas independientes en el país. La periodista también es activista de derechos humanos, apoyando abiertamente al movimiento de las Damas de Blanco, agrupación que el gobierno ha reprimido e impedido manifestarse en varias oportunidades.

García fue juzgada al día siguiente de su arresto y condenada a un año y ocho meses de prisión por causas que no fueron todavía debidamente informadas. El presidente del Centro de Derechos Humanos y Democracia Brigada 2506, Segundo Miranda, alertó sobre este hecho, aunque la prensa oficial de Cuba, Granma y Juventud Rebelde, no informaron sobre el tema.

El presidente de la SIP, Alejandro Aguirre, subdirector del Diario Las Américas, con sede en Miami, dijo que “seguimos observando la misma historia de restricción a la libertad de expresión en Cuba”, lamentando que “mientras estamos pendientes de la suerte de la famosa bloguera Yoani Sánchez, quien fue hostigada en varias oportunidades, otras mujeres y hombres están siendo perseguidos por un gobierno que amenaza, reprime, censura, juzga y condena sin miramiento alguno”.

Con el encarcelamiento de la periodista García, la única mujer, son 26 los comunicadores presos en Cuba. Muchos de ellos presentan cuadros delicados de salud, lo que ha provocado protestas a favor de su liberación, entre ellas la del comunicador independiente Guillermo Fariñas, quien mantiene una huelga de hambre desde hace varias semanas.

El 24 de abril en la mañana fue detenido en Holguín, Yosvani Anzardo Hernández, director del periódico independiente Candonga. Su esposa, Lourdes María Yen Rodríguez, relató que dos agentes de la Seguridad del Estado se presentaron en su domicilio en el municipio de San Germán y detuvieron a Hernández. La familia desconoce los motivos del arresto. En septiembre de 2009 Hernández estuvo 15 días encarcelado después de que fue allanada su residencia y se le decomisara equipo electrónico.

Por su parte, el presidente de la Comisión de Libertad de Prensa e Información, Robert Rivard, director editorial del periódico San Antonio Express-News, de Texas, reiteró el pedido de la organización para que sean liberados de manera incondicional los periodistas encarcelados, en especial aquellos que por razones humanitarias se les debería respetar sus derechos.

La SIP mantiene la siguiente lista de 26 periodistas encarcelados: Fueron condenados en 2003 Ricardo González Alfonso, Víctor Rolando Arroyo, Normando Hernández González, Julio César Gálvez, Adolfo Fernández Sainz, Omar Rodríguez Saludes, Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez, Mijaíl Barzaga Lugo, Pedro Argüelles Morán, Pablo Pacheco Ávila, Alfredo Pulido López, Fabio Prieto Llorente, Iván Hernández Carrillo, José Luis Garía Paneque, Juan Carlos Herrera, Miguel Galván Gutiérrez, José Ubaldo Izquierdo, Omar Ruiz Hernández, Léster Luis González Pentón y Alfredo Felipe Fuentes; en 2006 Alberto Gil Triay y Raymundo Perdigón Brito; en 2007 Ramón Velázquez Toranso y Oscar Sánchez Madan; en 2009 Alberto Santiago Du Bouchet y en 2010 Dania Virgen García.

La SIP es una entidad sin fines de lucro dedicada a la defensa y promoción de la libertad de prensa y de expresión en las Américas. Está compuesta por más de 1.300 publicaciones del hemisferio occidental; y tiene sede en Miami, Estados Unidos. Para mayor información, por favor, visite http://www.sipiapa.org

http://www.sipiapa.org/v4/index.php?page=cont_comunicados&seccion=detalles&idioma=sp&id=4366

The Egyptian regime's offensive against bloggers: A call for solidarity

I received the following message from an Egyptian pro-democracy activist friend of mine asking for help. As I did a little background research discovered that Egypt was tenth in the Committee to Protect Journalist's list of ten worse countries to be a blogger. Looking at the pictures and names I recognize two friends among the activists detained in Egypt: Ahmed Badawy and Esraa Abel Fatah.


The Egyptian police arrested 30 bloggers, activists and journalists during their visit to Nagaa Hammadi to offer condolences to the families of the recent events that happened there as soon as they arrived at the Nagaa Hammadi station. They have also been beaten and verbally abused most of them are my friends

I need the help of all of my free friends all over the world to to condemn the Egyptian government's actions.

1-Esraa Abel Fatah
2– Wael Abaas
3- Basem Samir
4- Basem Fathy Mohamed
5- Ahmed Badawy
6– Shiref Abdel Aziz
7- Marian Nagy Hana
8- Mostafa Al Nagar
9- Roya Ghareeb
10- Naser Fathy
11- Khaled Mahmoud
12-Talat Al Sawy
13- Nadia AL Zany " from France'
14- Amira Al Tahawy
15-Salma Akl
16- Ahmed Mahmoud
17- Ismail Sayed Omar
18- Mona Foaad Ahmad
19- Ahmad Fathy Mohamed
20- Bola Abdo
21-Hosam Saber Aly
22- Hamada Abdel Fatah
23-Gamal Farid
24-Mohamed Khalaf
25- Alhoseny Ahmed
26-Mohamed Hamdy Hassan
27-Mohamed Abdallah Mohamed
28- Hashmat Mohamed
29- Tarek Sabry Abdallah
30- Shahinaz Mohamed

The following is text that I have added:

Please get in touch with the Egyptian authorities and demand the release of these journalists, bloggers, and activists

President of the Republic, Muhammad Hosni Mubarak, Fax: +202 390 1998, E-mail: webmaster@presidency.gov.eg;

Egyptian Public Prosecutor, Counsellor Abdel Meguid Mahmoud Abdel Meguid, Dar al Qadha al-'Ali, Ramses Street, Cairo, Egypt, Fax: + 20 2 2577 4716;

Minister of Interior, Minister Habib Ibrahim El Adly, 25 Al-Sheikh Rihan Street, Bab al-Louk, Cairo, Egypt, Fax: +20 22 796 0682 Email: center@iscmi.gov.eg or moi@idsc.gov.eg;

National Council for Human Rights, Ambassador Mokhless Kotb, Secretary General, 1113 Corniche El Nil, Midane Al Tahrir, Specialized National Councils Building – 11th floor, NDP Building, Cairo, Egypt, Fax: +2022 574 7497, Email: nchr@nchr.org.eg.

Ministry of Foreign Affairs, Human Rights and International Humanitarian and Social Affairs, Mr. Wael Abu al-Magd, Corniche al-Nil, Cairo, Egypt, Fax: +20 22 574 9713

Permanent Mission of Egypt to the United Nations in Geneva, H.E. Mr. Hisham Badr, Avenue Blanc 49, 1202 Geneva, Fax: +41 22 738 44 15, Email: mission.egypt@ties.itu.int

Deputy Assistant Minister of Foreign Affairs for Human Rights

Wael Abu al-Magd

Human Rights and International Humanitarian and Social Affairs

Ministry of Foreign Affairs

Corniche al-Nil, Cairo, Egypt

Fax: +20 22 574 9713

Also send copies of your letter to diplomatic representatives of Egypt accredited to your country.

Cuban society: the monologue disguised as dialogue

Cuban society: the monologue disguised as dialogue

"Cuban society is not white or black, it's not a matter of zero or 100."
Rafael Hernández, Cuban professor and Temas editor

"I look around and it is the other blockade which affects us most, that of censorship, intolerance and punishment to those that opine differently."
Yoani Sanchez, Philologist and blogger



There have been two events over the past two weeks that I would've liked to have attended. The first was at Florida International University two Thursdays ago. The second this past Thursday in Havana at the Fresa y Chocolate Cultural Center.

On Thursday, October 22, 2009 Rafael Hernández a University of Havana professor and editor of Temas delivered a lecture at FIU, according to The Miami Herald titled: Catharsis or Debate? Critical Thinking in the Public Sphere of Cuba Today. According to the Miami Herald the professor argued that "catharsis" or emotional arguments leads to "a denial of alternatives, personal reprobation, verbal aggression . . . a monologue rather than a dialogue." This is a redefinition of the word that flies in the face of thousands of years of history beginning with Aristotle and sets catharsis on its head.

Casually looking at the definition of the word it refers to the "purification or purgation of the emotions through art" that brings about spiritual renewal or release from tension by affording its expression leads to the "elimination of a complex." Psychologists say that catharsis offers a way to vent feelings in an appropriate manner. One approach to catharsis in the realm of theater uses negative experiences actively reliving them on stage in order that "participants can develop the creativity needed to find new solutions. " Perhaps a better title would have begun with "debate or dialogue" rather than "catharsis or debate" although in either case all of the terms: debate, dialogue, and catharsis have much to offer within the Cuban context and should not be demonized or marginalized.

When Professor Hernández argues that "If it was only Fidel Castro, it would not be a problem" referring to the denial of alternatives he ignores a half century of history not to mention constitutional and penal law. Now if what he means by this answer is that if others were not following orders and that having the brothers Castro spouting orders with no one to carry them out would end the problem then I would agree, but if the argument is that there are many who deny alternatives and engage in their own monologues and are unable to come together with a constructive program I would respectfully disagree.

In Cuba it is not a question of zero or 100 but rather one or nothing. Either you accept as laid out in Article 5 of the Cuban constitution that the Communist Party of Cuba is "the organized vanguard of the Cuban nation, is the highest leading force of society and of the state, which organizes and guides the common effort toward the goals of the construction of socialism and the progress toward a communist society" or you do not. No other political party is legally permitted or recognized in the current system. It is one party or nothing.

Furthermore the term nothing or zero applies to the freedoms recognized for Cubans who are in opposition to communism and advocate an alternative socio-economic-political system according to Article 62 of Cuba's constitution along with the warning that attempts to exercise those freedoms to advocate alternatives is "punished by law."

Professor Hernández's swipe at Yoani Sánchez and her Generation Y blog not meeting his vision of critical debate stating that "by definition, it is not an analytical debate ...unfortunately, it has more of catharsis than debate. Sorry,'' and arguing that there is "too much cyber-chancleteo'' [ gutter-level discourse] was both unfortunate and perhaps indicated a lack of familiarity with the material. Yoani's blog has been blocked from viewing in Cuba by the dictatorship.

This brings me to the second event I would have liked to have attended. On Thursday, October 29, 2009 the magazine Temas organized a debate about the Internet at the Fresa y Chocolate Cultural Center. Several bloggers, among them Claudia Cadelo, attempted to participate and were denied access with the phrase: “The institution reserves the right of admission.” Nevertheless clad with a blonde wig Yoani Sanchez was able to get in and briefly participate. This is an exerpt of her account of the event:

"A young writer asked to speak and lamented that so many had been prevented from entering; then someone came and mentioned terms such as “enemy,” “dangerous,” and “defend ourselves.” When finally I was called, I took the opportunity to ask what relationship there is between the limitations in bandwidth and the many websites censored for the Cuban public."

The questions she raises are concrete and refer to problems that impact most Cubans, and the actions by the organizers to restrict participation by those with a different point of view indicate a monologue disguised as a debate.



Instead of monologues disguised as debates or dialogues and ad hominem attacks disguised as detached criticism the internet offers a virtual space for catharsis, debate, and dialogue which can be the basis of a more open, pluralistic, and democratic conversation on Cuba that in the realm of ideas brings an end to the legally enforced totalitarian monologue.