The Cuban revolution against the Castro tyranny is being fought on several fronts.
Among the many categories of combatants:
Political prisoners, and those formerly imprisoned in the gulag.
Independent journalists.
Punk rockers.
Members of these three groups converged in the town of Placetas this week, and fearful of strength in numbers, the dictatorship struck back against an amazing demonstration of solidarity with one of the giants of the Cuban opposition.
Here are the details:
Havana, March 23rd 2009. Photographer Claudio Fuentes Madan and Ciro Diaz, frontman for La Babosa Azul and guitarist for Porno Para Ricardo, have been detained by State Security after offering their show of solidarity in Placetas for political activist Jorge Luis Garcia Perez (Antunez).Antunez is still in critical condition following a month long hunger strike to peacefully protest the treatment of prisoners of conscience in Cuba and the abuses of the Castro regime. Antunez, who had written an open letter to president Obama last week, was previously jailed for over 17 years by the regime.
As far as we can tell, no charges have been laid against Claudia Fuentes or Ciro Diaz and the reasons behind the arrests remain unknown. In fact they are not likely to be known until they are freed or the state decides to lay charges publicly. In Cuba an arrest warrant is an abstract concept and is not needed in order to detain someone and people can be held at the whim of the government and the infamous Cuban Gestapo, the G2.
In the past year we have seen harassment of the dissident elements in Cuba, whose 50 year old revolution claims to give a voice to the people, grow to levels that have not been seen for quite some time. Bloggers such as Yoani Sanchez and Claudia Cadelo have been called in, along with reporter and blogger Reinaldo Escorbar, for “questioning”; prize winning author OLPL was threatened with bodily harm by agents of the state prior to the launch of his new book; more recently Claudio Fuentes Madan along with members of Porno Para Ricardo were detained twice in the same day but were released with only fines to pay.
The excessive repression of the Castro regime is well known to the international community and is a constant source of debate, but when a photographer and a musician get arrested for showing their support to a man who is quite possibly dying of hunger, things have gone to far.
An online acquaintance of mine summed up this act of solidarity perfectly: "The underground rocker was crossing half of Cuba simply to say 'I'm with you,' to one of Cuba's leading freedom activists, Jorge Luis Garcia Perez, better known as Antunez."
And in doing so, Claudio Fuentes Madan and Ciro Diaz set an example of the rest of us to follow.
Read more about the arrests here.
And more about Antunez's protest here.
Recent Comments