To promote a peaceful transition to a Cuba that respects human rights
and political and economic freedoms
Castro regime raids San Isidro Movement headquarters, two activists still missing, and 80 artists now protesting outside Ministry of Culture in Cuba
Cuban artists of the San Isidro Movement have been calling for a dialogue with Cuban officials in the matter of the unjust imprisonment of Cuban artist Denis Solis Gonzalez, and Havana has responded with escalating violence.
It began with detentions when they protested outside of the police station, surrounded the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement and prevented food being brought to them by friends and family, contaminated their water supply with a chemical substance, allowed an individual to knock down the front door with a hammer, and physically assault the artists and academics inside on hunger strike, and on November 26 at 8:00pm the regime shutoff their access to internet and to their phones and organized a rapid response brigade for an act of repudiation and secret police dressed as doctors raided the San Isidro Movement headquarters and forcibly expelled and arrested everyone inside and beat them up.
Initial list contained 15 activists detained or missing as follows: Luis M. Otero, Maikel Castillo, Omara Urquiola, Anamely Ramos, Esteban Rodríguez, Abu Duyanah, Katherine Bisquet, Osmani Pardo, Carlos Manuel, Iliana Hdez, Jorge Luis, Yasser Castellanos, Oscar Casanella, Adrian Rubio, and Anyel Valdes.
State security operation in Havana outside the San Isidro Movement on November 26th at 8:30pm
Furthermore, we now know that the activist Rolando Rodriguez Lobaina was intercepted while trying to reach Havana to show his solidarity with the hunger strikers. In the case of Mr. Lobaina he was held from 12:14am on November 26th until the morning of November 27 ( more than 24 hours and sent to Santiago de Cuba, the other side of the island). Surely, he has not been the only one detained, but is the one we know about.
Rolando Rodriguez Lobaina
Their international reaction to this repression of artists, despite it coinciding with Thanksgiving in the United States, has been uniform and critical from all ideological orientations.
Important groups that focus on the rights of artists are speaking out in force. Freemuse, PEN America’s Artists at Risk Connection (ARC), Finnish Music Council, Finnish Musicians’ Union, CREO (Norwegian Musicians Association), Artists at Risk AR-Perpetuum Mobile, and Safemuse today condemned "the harassment, police violence, human rights violations and repressive acts perpetrated by Cuban authorities against artists, journalists, and cultural rights defenders in the county, including those relating to the peaceful demonstrations against Denis Solis Gonzalez’ detention and subsequent imprisonment," and also supported "the calls of the Cuban artistic community to encourage the authorities in the country to engage in dialogues with the Movimiento San Isidro to prevent future consequences regarding the health of the artists and activists currently on hunger strike and to stop their repressive behaviour towards artists, journalists, and activists."
More troubling for the dictatorship, official artists have been speaking critically of the repression against these Cuban artists and academics. In addition to the Spanish speaking press, the crackdown was reported on in The Guardian and by BBC News. Eighty Cuban artists today congregated before the Ministry of Culture in support of the San Isidro Movement. The dictatorship's strategy of terror to prevent solidarity between Cubans has failed for now.
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