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Le voyage à Cuba d’une Canadienne tourne au cauchemar

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Le gouvernement canadien a demandé des
explications à La Havane sur ce qui s’est produit alors que Ross
a dénoncé des violences physiques contre sa personne pendant ses cinq jours de détention.

”Ca a été cinq jours de terreur, a rapporté Olenia Ross dans une interview avec le Nuevo Herald. “je me suis vu frappée et humiliée
dans un cachot, et j’ai senti la même peur de de quand je suis sorti
de Cuba par première fois “.

Onelia Ross agée de 48 ans, est la femme d’un diplomate canadien et réside
à Ottawa depuis 1978, avait décidé d’accompagner une couple d’amis
cubains en visite touristique dans la province de Holguín, dans l’est
de l’île.

Tous les trois ont voyagé depuis
Montréal à Holguín le 6 février dernier, et tout paraissait prêt
pour un séjour splendide, loin de l’hiver canadien rigoureux.

Mais après l’attérrissage dans l’aéroport de Holguín, l’escapade dans les tropiques tourne au cauchemar.

Les autorités cubaines lui ont affirmé qu’elle essayait d’entrer
illégalement à Cuba et qu’elle devait immédiatement retourner au
Canada.

”C’était absurde, a rappelé Ross, le 3 février j’avais été à l’ambassade de Cuba à Ottawa, avec mon passeport cubain pour
l’habiliter, et le consul m’avait traitée comme
toujours, avec un reçu pour le paiement des 160 dollars”

Notez au passage le prix d’un passeport pour un Cubain : 160 dollars, soit environ 20 mois de travail compte tenu du salaire mensuel moyen à Cuba (210 pesos, soit environ 8 dollars, le salaire mensuel le plus bas du monde, environ 5 centimes d’euro de l’heure)

Mais les fonctionnaires d’immigration d’ Holguín ont considéré
qu’il y avait une erreur de la date imprimée dans l’autorisation et
ils lui ont dénié l’accès au territoire national.
Quatre fonctionnaires ont sorti Ross de
la salle par la force.

”J’ai commencé à crier pour que les étrangers se rendent compte de ce
qui arrivait . Ils m’ont frappée et deux femmes
en uniforme ont commencé à me traiter vulgairement… alors je me
suis jeté par terre pour essayer de me défendre “.

Ross est restée cinq heures sans qu’on lui permette de prendre de l’eau ni
d’utiliser les toilettes. À 11 heures du soir, elle a été transféré en avion à La
Havane pour être inculpée.

Ross a fait cinq jours de prison avant de pouvoir
quitter l’île. On lui a confisqué les $500 qu’elle portait sur elles pour les vacances
et pour être libérée, a dû payer tous les ”services reçus”
soit $16 par jour pour la cellule, $12 pour les aliments qu’elle n’a jamais
consommé et $42 pour le transport de d’allée et retour à
l’aéroport.

Grâce au fait que le couple d’amis qui l’accompagnait a pu joindre
l’Ambassade du Canada à La Havane, le consul Nathalie Garon a pu la
visiter dans la prison. Elle a finalement pu retourner à Ottawa le 10
février.

”Le gouvernement canadien a déposé plainte pour mauvais traitements
physiques (violences physiques) envers Madame Ross devant le gouvernement cubain au moyen d’une note diplomatique ” a indiqué Cloé Rodrigue, porte-parole
de l’ITC.

La citoyenne mexicaine Eva Badillo, a
partagé avec Ross l’expérience de la prison au Cuba. ”Deux heures après mon arrivée Mme Ross, est arrivée avec des hématomes
sur les bras et les jambes”, a témoigné Badillo, qui était détenue pour des
soupçons de faux mariage avec un citoyen cubain.

”Je récupère encore de ce traumatisme, a exprimé Ross, qui
dirige une affaire de comptabilité à Ottawa. Je n’ai pas émigré
pour des raisons politiques et je n’ai pas fait de politique hors de
Cuba ; tout ceci fait partie des mesures arbitraires qui existent à Cuba pour
raqueter les Cubains qui vivent à l’étranger “.

Ross est diplomée d’ Économie et Sciences Humaines de l’Université d’Ottawa.
C’ était son troisième voyage à Cuba depuis 1978, les deux
précédents pour motifs familiaux.

“Je veux que le monde soit au courant des
vols et des abus commis à Cuba, en commençant par beaucoup de touristes canadiens qui voient Cuba comme un paradis “.

Le Canada est le premier marché touristique de Cuba, avec 250.000
visiteurs par an et des vols réguliers qui lient 15 villes
canadiennes avec sept destinations à Cuba.

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L’organisation internationale contre la torture lance une “intervention d’urgence” pour José Daniel Ferrer

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José Daniel Ferrer

MIAMI, États-Unis.- L’Observatoire pour la protection des défenseurs des droits humains (OPDDH), a lancé ce vendredi une campagne d'”Interventions urgentes” en faveur du prisonnier politique et de conscience cubain José Daniel Ferrer García, leader de l’Union patriotique de Cuba (UNPACU), selon une note de Radio Televisión Martí.

(suite…)

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Who Is Filling Cuba’s University Classrooms?

New students at the University of Havana (14ymedio) Born during the Special Period, they have grown up trapped in the dual currency system, and when they get their degrees Raul Castro will no longer be in power. They are the more than 100,000 young people just starting college throughout the country. Their brief biographies include educational experiments, battles of ideas, and the emergence of new technologies They know more about X-Men than about Elpidio Valdés, and only remember Fidel Castro from old photos and archived documentaries. They are the Wi-Fi kids with their pirate networks, raised with the “packets” of copied shows and illegal satellite dishes

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universidad-estudiantes_CYMIMA20140902_0010_13
New students at the University of Havana (14ymedio)

Born during the Special Period, they have grown up trapped in the dual currency system, and when they get their degrees Raul Castro will no longer be in power. They are the more than 100,000 young people just starting college throughout the country. Their brief biographies include educational experiments, battles of ideas, and the emergence of new technologies They know more about X-Men than about Elpidio Valdés, and only remember Fidel Castro from old photos and archived documentaries.

They are the Wi-Fi kids with their pirate networks, raised with the “packets” of copied shows and illegal satellite dishes. Some nights they would connect through routers and play strategy video games that made them feel powerful and free. Whoever wants to know them should know that they’ve had “emerging teachers” since elementary school and were taught grammar, math and ideology via television screens. However, they ended up being the least ideological of the Cubans who today inhabit this Island, the most cosmopolitan and with the greatest vision of the future.

On arriving at junior high school they played at throwing around around the obligatory snack of bread while their parents furtively passed their lunches through the school gate. They have a special physical ability, an adaptation that has allowed them to survive the environment; they don’t hear what doesn’t interest them, they close their ears to the harangues of morning assemblies and politicians. They seem lazier than other generations and in reality they are, but in their case this apathy acts like an evolutionary advantage. They’re better than us and will live in a country that has nothing to do with what we were promised.

A few months ago, these same young people, starred in the best known case of school fraud uncovered publicly. Some of those hoping to earn a place in higher education bought the answers to an admissions test. They were used to paying for approval, because they had to turn to private tutors to teach them what they should have learned in the classroom. Many of those who recently enrolled in the university had private teachers starting in elementary school. They are the children of a new emerging class that has used its resources so that their children can reach a desk at the right hand — or the left — of the alma mater.

These young people dressed in uniforms in their earlier grades, but they struggled to differentiate themselves through the length of a shirt, a fringe of bleached hair, or through pants sagging below their hips. They are the children of those who barely had a change of underwear in the nineties, so their parents tried to make sure they didn’t “go through the same thing,” and turned to the black market for their clothes and shoes. They mock the false austerity and, not wanting to look like militants, they love bright shiny colors and name brand outfits.

Yesterday, with the start of the school year, they received a lecture about the attempts of “imperialism to undermine the revolution through its youth.” It was like a faint drizzle running over an impervious surface. The government is right to be worried; these young people who have entered the university will never become good soldiers or fanatics. The clay from which they are made cannot be molded.

Excerpt from:
Who Is Filling Cuba’s University Classrooms?

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A Caricature of a Cuban Woman

Woman drinking (14ymedio) 14yMEDIO, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 22 August 2014 — A woman on national television said that her husband “helps” her with some household chores. To many, the phrase may sound like the highest aspiration of every woman. Another lady asserts that her husband behaves like a “Federated man,” an allusion to the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), which today is celebrating its 54th anniversary. As for me, on this side of the screen, I feel sorry for them in the face of such meekness

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Woman drinking (14ymedio)

Woman drinking (14ymedio)

14yMEDIO, Yoani Sanchez, Havana, 22 August 2014 — A woman on national television said that her husband “helps” her with some household chores. To many, the phrase may sound like the highest aspiration of every woman. Another lady asserts that her husband behaves like a “Federated man,” an allusion to the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC), which today is celebrating its 54th anniversary. As for me, on this side of the screen, I feel sorry for them in the face of such meekness. Instead of the urgent demands they should mention, all I hear is this appreciation directed to a power as manly as it is deaf.

It’s not about “helping” to wash a plate or watch the kids, nor tiny illusory gender quotas that hide so much discrimination like a slap. The problem is that economic and political power remains mainly in masculine hands. What percentage of car owners are women? How many acres of land are owned or leased by women. How many Cuban ambassadors on missions abroad wear skirts? Can anyone recite the number of men who request paternity leave to take care of their newborns? How many young men are stopped by the police each day to warn them they can’t walk with a tourist? Who mostly attends the parent meetings at the schools?

Please, don’t try to “put us to sleep” with figures in the style of, “65 percent of our cadres and 50 percent of our grassroots leaders are women.” The only thing this statistic means is that more responsibility falls on our shoulders, which means neither a high decision-making level nor greater rights. At least such a triumphalist phrase clarifies that there are “grassroots leaders,” because we know that decisions at the highest level are made by men who grew up under the precepts that we women are beautiful ornaments to have at hand… always and as long as we keep our mouths shut.

I feel sorry for the docile and timid feminist movement that exists in my country. Ashamed for those ladies with their ridiculous necklaces and abundant makeup who appear in the official media to tell us that “the Cuban woman has been the greatest ally of the Revolution.” Words spoken at the same moment when a company director is sexually harassing his secretary, when a beaten woman can’t get a restraining order against her abusive husband, when a policeman tells the victim of a sexual assault, “Well, with that skirt you’re wearing…” and the government recruits shock troops for an act of repudiation against the Ladies in White.

Women are the sector of the population that has the most reason to shout their displeasure. Because half a century after the founding of the caricature of an organization that is the Federation of Cuban Women, we are neither more free, nor more powerful, nor even more independent.

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A Caricature of a Cuban Woman

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