The Guillermo Fariñas blogburst is up and growing.
In Cuba, freedom is against the law. And anyone who resists the exercise of Fidel Castro’s tyranny is an outlaw, whether they do so silently, like a majority of Cubans, or whether they step up — like independent journalist Guillermo Farinas — and put at risk their life and what little liberty they might have and go public with their opposition to the regime.
Farinas, who has been on a hunger strike since Jan. 31 to protest a decision by authorities to block his access to the Internet, is an outlaw not for taking active measures against the regime. His “crime” is that like any journalist worthy of the profession, he has stood witness to how Castro has destroyed Cuba simply by finding and reporting stories that reflect the reality of the nation today.
Farinas is willing to die for the right to do what you and I are doing right now: Using the Internet to gather and distribute information, a right that is essential to freedom.
"If God wants me to die, I will die,” Farinas said of his protest. “I will be a martyr for the free information in the world."
Castro understands the power of freedom and the right to information, which is why he has no intention of giving in to Farinas’ demands. Unfortunately, most of Farinas’ colleagues in the mainstream media in the United States, whether by choice or by ignorance, do not. Except for a few stories in newspapers like the Miami Herald and the Chicago Tribune, very little has been reported about Farinas and his protest.
Why? I am not sure, except I suspect it has something to do with tired attitudes in the media about Cuba. Castro and Cuba are viewed by many media members through the prism of U.S. policy, i.e. whatever Castro does must be because the U.S. forced his hand. Cubans, so goes this way of thinking, live in poverty because of the U.S. embargo, not because Castro is a tyrant and communism is a failure.
That “blame America first” attitude simply does not leave room for much sympathy for someone like Farinas, even if he is a journalist. And it means it is unlikely that Castro and his regime will be held accountable if and when Farinas dies.
Castro, however, can be reassured that this blogger and many colleagues in the Cuban blogging community participating in today’s blogburst will not be silent.
Before the hunger strike and before his health began to decline, Farinas, the founder and editor of the Cubanacan news agency, had been prolific in reporting on the Cuban dissident movement and other topics. A search at CubaNet revealed dozens of articles written by Farinas, like this one, from last July:
Minister in charge of energy suffers a blackout
SANTA CLARA, Cuba - 5 July (Guillermo Fariñas, Cubanacán Press / www.cubanet.org) - Yadira García Vera, the minister of Basic Industry, was participating in a meeting on Cuba's ongoing electrical shortage when the lights went out, an occurrence she had promised to prevent.
Sources close to the local committee of the Communist Party said that embarrassed party officials offered their apologies to the minister after the blackout June 23 at the theater of the Central University. Power was restored when an emergency generator was put into service.
That evening, the minister experienced another power shortage at a government security center where she was staying. She was then taken to the Granjita tourism area where emergency generators guarantee a continuous flow of electricity.
In Cuba, Fariñas’ job as an independent reporter and editor is dangerous work. Just ask — if you could — the 24 journalists currently imprisoned in Castro’s gulag. To survive, Castro must repress accurate information about the regime and its disastrous effects on the Cuban people. That is why he has saved some of his harshest treatment for courageous souls like Fariñas.
Fariñas’ commitment to his craft as a journalist, and to Cuba, make him a very dangerous man for the regime. That is why the state police on Jan. 23 moved against Fariñas and banned him from using the Internet to transmit his stories to the outside the world. Not only did they shut up a reporter, they stopped the truth about Cuba, a truth that you won’t find in Granma or Prensa Latina, from being revealed to the world.
In doing so, Castro has created a hero and most likely, a martyr for Cuban liberty.
Fariñas’ current standoff with government began Jan. 22, when the Miami Herald reported on how the Cuban government had a launched a new wave of repression against the opposition. Here is the lead of the story:
Dozens of angry Cubans shouting insults and pounding their fists in the air surrounded dissident Guillermo Fariñas one recent afternoon, demanding to know: Did he have the nerve to denounce Fidel Castro in front of them?
Outnumbered and his heart thumping with fear, the psychologist and dissident journalist said, he dropped to his knees on a street in his hometown of Santa Clara in central Cuba.
"I got on my knees and said, `Down With Fidel!''' the 43-year-old Fariñas claimed in a telephone interview from Cuba. ``They started kicking and beating me, bruising my back, arm and head. They stopped when they saw I would not lose my dignity and say things I didn't feel.''
The next day, Castro turned off Fariñas’ Internet access, and eight days later, he began his protest, which, unless the government backs down, he has vowed to take to the “final consequence.”
Now near death, Fariñas has still not loss his dignity.
And as I wrote last week, he has not lost my admiration. He has not lost my friendship. He has not lost my love.
If he dies, Fariñas will die as an outlaw for freedom.
And he will die as a hero.
Support Fariñas by signing this petition.
For more about Fariñas by another participants in today’s Blogburst, read KillCastro and Chez Diva.
Also, El Confeti; Ziva at Blog for Cuba; and La Ventanita.
(More links will be added throughout the day.)
UPDATED, 8:15 a.m.
Val at Babalú is up with his posting, as well as excerpts and links from other participants in the blogburst for Fariñas.
UPDATED, 9:15 a.m.
Fausta has more links to other participants in today's blogburst.
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