Cuban American Artist Denied Entry to Cuba Ahead of Havana Biennial

"L'art pour l'art" - Théophile Gautier (1811–1872)

Cuban American artist Coco Fusco

ArtNews and Art Forum are reporting on how Cuban American artist Coco Fusco was denied entry to Cuba and declared inadmissible. Artistic freedom of expression is an important topic for this blog. Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter came into being on August 23, 2009 in reaction to attempts to censor Juanes in Miami for wanting to put on a concert in Cuba. Defending both freedom of expression and art for art's sake are both important.  ArtNews reproduced a Facebook entry by Cuban American artist Coco Fusco describing what happened to her when she tried to enter Cuba. Furthermore Cuban rappers Maykel Castillo Pérez, "El Osokbo"  and  Lazaro Rodriquez Betancourt “Pupito en Sy” remained jailed for their opposition to censorship of the arts in Decree 349. This should outrage friends of liberty everywhere.

"INADMISSIBLE"

I am currently sitting in the immigration area of José Marti Airport in Havana. I have been denied entry to Cuba for the second time in the past year. I heard one of the Immigration officials refer to me as an "inadmissible." I'm not a live plant, cheese, a narcotic or a pornographic publication, but expressing critical views of repressive measures carried out against artists constitutes grounds for barring my entry to Cuba.

I am not the first or the last intellectual with close ties to Cuba who has been punished in this way for expressing my views and advocating for greater freedom of expression in Cuba. It has become a sad routine.

The immigration officials in the airport do not give reasons for my imminent expulsion. I am sure that this is due to my writings on Cuban art and cultural politics, and my steadfast support for the artists-led movement in Cuba against Decree 349. It strikes me as a tragic that a government would harass its artists and silence critical debate about its culture in order to impress visitors by creating the false impression that the only art in Cuba is what the state wants to show. The state is counting on favorable coverage from visitors who know little and who will stay on the tour buses and remain inside their art corrals. It also counts on the complicity of artists who remain silent in order to be promoted by the state. They benefit from skeptics who believe that political interventions are carried by artists who lack better (i.e. more artistic) ways of getting attention.

Cuban nationals often believe they have no choice because speaking up means social death. How foreigners rationalize their silence Is another very complicated story, in which unwavering support for the Cuban revolution functions as a kind of anti-American chic for globe trotting intellectuals who haven’t had their own lives turned upside down by a state security apparatus.

Those who suggest that every biennial is selective and that Cuba is no different are missing the point or evading it. Since when do biennials in other countries arrest artists who open their studios or run parallel events? Since when do museums arrest artists that protest their practices? Since when is is ok to threaten foreigners who show up for an independently produced art event with deportation? Cuba is indeed different from many other countries in its harsh repression of criticism and cultural activism. It is also different in that culture is the last valuable product for export and whitewashing of its image that the state has left. If artists can determine what aesthetic value is the government will lose the last jewel in its crown.

I find it disturbing that it takes beheadings, stoning and long prison sentences to get most people in the artworld to protest censorship and repression of artists. Violence is not reducible to physical aggression. Creativity, imagination and hope die slow deaths in a country where any expression of dissent is criminalized. A biennial every few years doesn’t upend that deterioration.

Transatlantic Discussion on Cuba and Venezuela at the European Parliament

An important conversation

Conversation on Cuba and Venezuela in the European Parliament on April 9, 2019

The Alliance of Liberals and Democrats of Europe Group hosted a Transatlantic Discussion on Cuba and Venezuela at the European Parliament on April 9, 2019. Below is the video of the entire event.

Thanks VP @Telicka for organizing this event of solidarity with the Cuban and Venezuelan people in @Europarl_EN
Honored to share the floor with you, congressman @LincolnDBalart, @ElmarBrok_MEP y Ambassadors @mpalous, Viera and Eguiguren @IACHumanRights@d_diaz_balart#CubaDecide https://t.co/B5xpAiB86w

— Rosa María Payá A. (@RosaMariaPaya) April 10, 2019

Meeting was kicked off and moderated by Pavel Telička, a former diplomat, businessman, EU Commissioner and now Vice President of the European Parliament. The key note speaker was former U.S. Congressman Lincoln Diaz-Balart. The panel discussion included Orlando José Viera Blanco, Ambassador of Venezuela to Canada; Rosa María Payá Acevedo, of the Cuba Decide campaign; and Francisco José Eguiguren Praeli, IACHR Commissioner for Human Rights Defenders.

This is a must see discussion.

Foreign Medical students beaten down in Cuba for protesting poor conditions

Congolese beaten down by secret police in Cuba for protesting conditions

Anti-riot shock troops chase down students. Medical student faces down armed police

On Monday a large number of secret police gathered to violently put down a student protest at the School of Medical Sciences Salvador Allende of Havana. There had been rising tensions among Congolese medical students who had been kept in poor conditions, and not been provided with their scholarship funds for over two years. Images of troops in riot gear, with dogs, and an armed police man pointing his firearm at medical student were captured and shared over social media. 

According to 14yMedio Congolese medical students held a meeting on April 1, 2019 with representatives of the Embassy of Congo and Higher Education and the Ministry of Health of Cuba that ended without an agreement between the parties, which generated a greater discontent among the students.

The Congolese students began a strike of non-attendance to the classes in protest, to which the authorities reacted with vigilance in the residences of the students. On Monday, the operation was moved to the Salvador Allende campus in the Altahabana district of Boyeros municipality.

"The police arrived and delivered many blows, at least five students were arrested and taken to the police headquarters in this area as well as a neighbor who was filming and a girl," said a witness who did not want to reveal his name. The medical students recorded images that they spread through social networks in which anti-riot police are seen running towards the protest area, previously cordoned off by a group of uniformed people. A police officer arrives to point a gun at two students. 

The protest organized by a group of medical students from the Republic of Congo on Monday was suppressed by a strong deployment of the National Revolutionary Police along with special troops and officers of the Ministry of the Interior (MININT). The Congolese students demanded the payment of their scholarships that have been delayed 27 months and better conditions in the university residences.

Some context: Kenyan doctor commits suicide in Cuba due to poor conditions

Health care professionals in Cuba have endured terrible conditions. Conditions so extreme that they have requested to return home, and at least in once case may have led to a suicide.

On March 17, 2019 Kenyan doctor Dr Hamisi Ali Juma was reported dead. He was taking part in an exchange program between Cuba and Kenya. A team of experts left for Cuba on March 20, 2019 to investigate the circumstances under which the Kenyan doctor died.

Citizen Digital explained why the doctor may have committed suicide:

Dr. Hamisi Ali Juma committed suicide barely six months into the exchange programme.
He was one of the 50 Kenyan doctors in Cuba sponsored by the government to study Family Medicine as a specialization under the framework of the MOU between Kenya and Cuba.

Dr. Ali Juma's family said that he was constantly complaining of poor working conditions in Cuba and at one point Hamisi even lodged a formal request to return home but that was never to be. 40  of the 50 doctors in Cuba including the deceased signed a distress letter.  The letter was sent to the Parliamentary Committee on Health, pleading with the legislators to address what the doctors termed as “numerous challenges that have gone unanswered.”

It further explains that they were forced to board the plane to Cuba with threats of tough disciplinary actions should they fail to do so. In the letter, the doctors explain that they currently live under “humiliating and unbearable conditions,” sharing small rooms with no ventilation.

Congolese medical students are standing up for their rights in Cuba, and discovering that the police state in Cuba is as brutal or more brutal than what they have experienced back home.

#CUBA: Situation w/ #Congolese medical students is escalating. #NEW video from inside the school shows students confronting #Cuban #police. The #Cuban govt issued statement saying the incidents have turned violent...behavior they say will not be tolerated. @WPLGLocal10 #Congo pic.twitter.com/7GKLo05xb6

— Hatzel Vela (@HatzelVelaWPLG) April 9, 2019

Fighting Historical Amnesia in Cuba: Remembering past and present street protests

"The struggle of man against power is the struggle of memory against forgetting" - Milan Kundera

Animal rights protest in Cuba permitted by communist regime

Four decades of non-violent resistance erased with a couple of headlines. Reuters titled it , " Independent march in Havana believed first for communist-run Cuba, organizers say" and Agence France Press, "Some 300 activists march in Havana to demand an animal protection law, in the first independent demonstration to take place in Cuba in years."  The first independent march in Cuba, according to these news sources, was for animal rights. This ignores the decades of human rights activism in Cuba that cost many their freedom.

This ignores the many street protests stretching back decades that were not approved by the communist regime, but otherwise tolerated or brutally repressed.

Massive anti-government street protest in Havana on August 5, 1994

We must remember the thousands of Cubans who took to the streets 25 years ago on August 5, 1994 chanting "libertad" freedom and were met with brutal repression in what became known as the Maleconazo.



We should also remember the courageous activists who year after year took to the streets on International Human Rights Day and were met with violent repression with hundreds detained.

Activists arrested in Cuba on human rights day for peacefully assembling (Reuters)

We must remember the Ladies in White (Las Damas de Blanco) that despite harassment, threats, brutal beatings, and arbitrary detentions beginning in the Spring of 2003 following their loved ones unjust imprisonment began a regular campaign of nonviolent marches demanding freedom for their husbands, fathers, sons, and brothers.

 Laura Inés Pollán Toledo became a dissident when her husband was imprisoned during the Black Cuban Spring of 2003 along with more than 75 other activists and civil society members. She was one of the founders of the Ladies in White and challenged the Castro regime in the streets of Cuba. Following brutal repression, in an effort to prevent them from marching through the streets of Havana, Laura Pollán directly and nonviolently challenged the regime: "We will never give up our protest. The authorities have three options — free our husbands, imprison us or kill us.

We should also remember that after seven years of constant struggle they achieved their goal of freeing their loved ones. 

The Cuban dictatorship assumed that they would disappear but Laura Pollán made the announcement that they were now a human rights organization, that they would continue marching until the laws were changed, and shortly afterwards met with a suspicious death after a sudden illness in 2011.  Despite Laura's death the Ladies in White continued marching, and facing the consequences. On Mother's Day in 2012 they marched along with Laura's widower in remembrance of her.

Ladies in White march on Mother's Day in honor of Laura Pollán, along with Laura's widower

The march this past Sunday, may be the beginning of a new chapter, with regime approval of a non-communist party demonstration, or it may be another example of the fake change Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas warned about. Either way we must remember the demonstrations that have taken place in Cuba before yesterday's and place them in proper context.

Ladies in White still marching today in Havana, Cuba (Photo by Angel Moya)

We must not forget. These protests are still taking place today in Cuba, and human rights defenders continue to pay a terrible price.

Prisoner of conscience Eduardo Cardet, leader of the Christian Liberation Movement allowed to spend a weekend at his home.

"I have lived these last few years with the conviction that unearned suffering is redemptive." - Martin Luther King Jr.,  Suffering and Faith,"April 27, 1960

Some good news, a man furloughed from jail is able to spend the weekend for the first time in two years and five months at home with his family. His name is Eduardo Cardet. He is a medical doctor. He is a husband and a father to two boys. Dr. Cardet is the Christian Liberation Movement's national coordinator.

Eduardo Cardet unjustly imprisoned without the ability to visit his family since November 30, 2016. He was jailed for providing a critical assessment of Fidel Castro's rule, and for his non-violent advocacy for a democratic change in Cuba.

The sad part is that he should have never been arrested, much less arbitrarily detained. Below is a translation of his message.

Note from Eduardo Cardet, National Coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement:

I am on a weekend pass that is part of the prison situation in which I find myself. For the first time I can be at home with my family after almost two and a half years and I hope it is a prior step to my definitive liberation.

I want to acknowledge the affection shown by friends and fellow citizens who have come to greet me and send a big hug to all the members of the Christian Liberation Movement and my thanks to all those people and institutions who have cared and worried about my situation and my family's.

Greetings from Velasco, Holguín

Eduardo Cardet Concepción

National Coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement

This is not the time to slow down, but the time to double down and campaign for Dr. Eduardo Cardet's freedom.