Connect with us

droits de l'homme

Deux journalistes à nouveau menacés de prison à Cuba

Published

on

Reporters sans frontières redoute que les convocations au tribunal des journalistes indépendants Oscar Espinosa Chepe et Jorge Olivera Castillo n’aboutissent à un retour de ces derniers en prison. Les deux hommes, incarcérés lors de la vague de répression de mars 2003, avaient été libérés à la fin de l’année 2004. Ils ont l’un et l’autre sollicité, en vain, une autorisation de sortie de l’île.

« Ces convocations intempestives au tribunal relèvent de la mascarade judiciaire. A quoi rime de vouloir faire renoncer à leur vocation des journalistes indépendants en sachant pertinemment qu’ils ne céderont jamais ? Si les autorités cubaines tiennent tant à réduire Oscar Espinosa Chepe et Jorge Olivera Castillo au silence, pourquoi n’accèdent-elles pas à leur demande de sortie du pays ? La répression des voix dissidentes est de toute façon vouée à l’échec », a déclaré Reporters sans frontières.

Condamné en avril 2003 à 20 ans de prison, Oscar Espinosa Chepe a bénéficié d’une licence extra-pénale pour raison de santé le 29 novembre 2004. « Cette licence risque d’être révoquée par la justice, ce qui signifierait mon retour en prison. Le pays est traversé par une nouvelle vague répressive et la presse indépendante est en première ligne », a déclaré le journaliste à Reporters sans frontières, la veille de sa comparution, dans la matinée du 28 février 2006, devant le tribunal municipal de Playa (La Havane).

Condamné à 18 ans de prison en 2003 et libéré le 6 décembre 2004, Jorge Olivera Castillo est attendu le 1er mars devant le tribunal municipal de la vieille Havane, qui l’avait déjà convoqué le 21 février. Les juges avaient alors notifié au journaliste une interdiction de sortie de la ville et l’obligation de travailler au sein d’une structure d’Etat. Jorge Olivera Castillo avait été averti qu’il retournerait automatiquement en prison en cas de manquement à ces obligations. La décision du 1er mars pourrait entériner cette mesure car, comme il l’avait confié à Reporters sans frontières au sortir de sa comparution du 21 février, Jorge Olivera Castillo n’a pas l’intention de renoncer à ses activités journalistiques.

Jorge Olivera souffrait déjà d’une grave maladie intestinale provoquant des hémorragies internes avant d’être emprisonné, mais son état s’est considérablement aggravé dans la prison de Guantanamo.

« Les conditions de détentions etaient infra humaine, l’eau était contaminée et la nourriture souvent pourrie. La nourriture se résumait à une mixture de farine de mais, de haricots écrasés avec de la farine de blé et mélangée avec de l’eau : cela avait pour nom « pâte alimentaire ». Deux fois par mois, nous avions droit à un morceau de poulet.
On me sortait une heure par jour, seul dans une cour, et selon l’heure il pouvait y avoir ou de ne pas avoir de soleil. Je n’étais pas correctement soigné et le stress et la mauvaise nourriture ont compliqué mes symptômes. J’ai aussi attrapé des parasites à cette époque, et je n’ai pas été correctement soigné dans l’hôpital de la prison»

« Après 20 mois et 19 jours d’emprisonnement dans une cellule minuscule, tu ressens comme une sorte d’étourdissement en sortant. J’ai l’impression de perdre très rapidement la mémoire de cette époque qui a duré si longtemps quand je l’ai vécue: c’est difficile de reprendre le rythme de la rue quand on a vécu si longtemps au ralenti. J’ai aussi des troubles de la vision à force de fixer un mur dans une cellule obscure d’1,5 m sur 3 mètres. Le simple fait de lire un journal peut devenir un problème dans ces conditions»

A son arrivée dans la prison il a d’abord été interné pendant trois mois avec des prisonniers de droit communs.
« Nous étions 18 dans la même cellule, et il y avait un seul WC attenant : un trou dans le sol. C’est un sous monde dangereux avec des individus qui ont une histoire pénale tres lourde. La plupart avait été condamné pour homicide ou trafic de drogue et certains avaient de gros problèmes de santé mentale. Tous étaient potentiellement très dangereux, et ca a été une punition supplémentaire de nous enfermer, nous les détenus politiques, avec ces gens là. Il m’a fallu beaucoup de psychologie pour accepter ces conditions et éviter d’avoir des problèmes. »

Enfin, par décision du tribunal municipal de l’Est-Havane du 15 février, Reinaldo Cosado Alén, de l’agence indépendante Lux Info Press, devait entamer, le 28 février, une peine de « travail correctionnel sans internement » pour une amende de 1 000 pesos, prétendument impayée depuis dix ans !

droits de l'homme

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

Published

on

By

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…)

Continue Reading

droits de l'homme

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

Published

on

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?

Continue Reading

droits de l'homme

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

Published

on

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.

Follow this link:
A Caricature of a Cuban Woman

Continue Reading

En ce moment