If this is my last column here, it’s because I’ve been imprisoned in Cuba
HAVANA — As I felt the cold metal of the handcuffs dig into my wrists and tried to adjust my body after being forced to hunch forward, I looked at my shoes and wondered how a government can be so afraid of reality that it tramples with impunity over someone willing to show the world that reality. Shortly before, three state security agents dressed as civilians had strip-searched me and made me face a wall to handcuff me, and now I was being taken in a car to their headquarters for interrogation. One of the agents had his right arm pressing over my body during part of the trip to keep my head down.
I suffered a very serious act of violence on Thursday, but what happened to me was not even the worst of the arbitrary detentions that political dissidents, activists, artists and other independent journalists frequently suffer in Cuba. It is a fact that many fundamental rights, such as freedom of expression, press and association, don’t exist in Cuba, because the regime is incapable of coexisting with people who think differently. But the Cuban government not only systematically commits flagrant violations of human rights, it also has the nerve of
seeking a seat on the Human Rights Council of the United Nations.
In Cuba, the only journalists authorized by the state to practice the profession are those who decide to do so in the Communist Party media, which is the only party recognized by the state. This is what the constitution
dictates. Therefore, the regime has the power to harass and repress journalists who work outside that legal umbrella, in the ecosystem of independent media.
