“They threw me into a garbage truck”: the testimony of an artist arrested during the demonstrations in Cuba
The testimonies of people detained in Cuba are eloquent.
The massive protests on Sunday against the island’s government led to a series of arrests of young protesters who denounce mistreatment and threats by of the security forces.
Added to them is the arrest of opponents who use social networks to call on opponents not to lower their guard, while the Cuban government accuses the United States of being behind of the demonstrations to destabilize the country.
This is the case of the youtuber Dina Stars , who was arrested on Tuesday while appearing live on the Spanish television program “Todo es Mentira” and was released on Wednesday afternoon.
Lack of medical attention in the face of the covid pandemic – 19, the precarious economic situation on the island and the absence of democracy are some of the reasons that They have motivated Cubans to take to the streets to demand changes.
However, the authorities assure that the main cause of the problems that affect Cubans is the embargo (or lock , as the government calls it) imposed by the US on the island for six decades.
The protests have had a great international repercussion due to the live broadcasts that the opponents have made through Facebook Live and the videos that travel through social networks.
Many of those arrested on Sunday have begun to be released, although dozens of people whose family members are demanding their release are still deprived of their liberty.
The internet service has been restored this Wednesday to a great extent part of the country, after a “digital blackout” that came into effect from Sunday afternoon, when the riots spread at different points s of the country.
“They threw me into a garbage truck”
The playwright, scriptwriter and theater director Yunior García was arrested on Sunday afternoon while protesting peacefully in front of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television together with a group of young artists.
After being interrogated in the Provisional Prison Depósito de La Habana, known as Vivac, in the Arroyo Naranjo municipality, he was released on Tuesday afternoon.
The artist Yunior García was detained in a prison known as Bivouac.
García spoke with BBC Mundo from his home in Havana , where now he remains with a precautionary measure that prevents him from going out without a “justified reason.”
This is his story.
“We were protesting peacefully in front of to the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television, we were 15 or 20 people, when a group of agents State security officers dressed in civilian clothes came to arrest us.
I was sitting on the ground, I tried to stand up, I told them that I was not going to resist, but they grabbed us violently. They grabbed me by the legs, by the neck, by the arms. I have marks on my arms.
They dragged me and threw me to a garbage truck as if we were bags of rubble. It was a violent repression.
In the truck they threw us to the ground and threatened to beat us. I felt hot blood, everything happened very fast. They took us to a prison called Vivac, which is on the outskirts of Havana.
They did not allow us to use the telephone to communicate with our relatives. They locked us in a cell and little by one, one by one, they called us for interrogations.
The interrogation
In my case, the interrogation was with a prison agent and a police officer the counterintelligence that claimed to have studied my case in advance, that had followed up on me.
He knew all my data, he knew everything about my personal life and my career as an artist. During the interrogation they were trying to establish a connection with the United States, something that was absolutely unreal.
I made it clear that I was not related to any country and that no one had paid me a penny to do what we had done.
When I returned to the cell we waited for the rest of the companions that they were being interrogated and then they locked us in a galley of the kind they have for common prisoners.
We were seven men. The three women who were also detained from our group were taken to another place.
They gave us a sheet, a towel, a piece of soap and a mosquito net. We didn’t eat anything that day. We saw how many young boys came after us and told us that they had been beaten.
You could see the precariousness of that prison. They had neither forms to take a statement, nor ink to take our fingerprints. They weren’t really prepared for what happened that day.
“Now I’m really not afraid”
We gave ourselves account that in prison those who mistreat the most are young people from or 18 years. In other words, the younger they are, the worse they are treated, because according to prison workers, those are the worst criminals in Cuba.
The night passed and at dawn they questioned me again asking me the same questions. But since the prison was overflowing and they needed to create space to continue putting other young people in, they released us in the afternoon.
Our relatives were waiting for us. The first thing I did was hug my girlfriend, she was crying. So we went home.
Now I’m really not afraid. It is that when you feel that your life is in danger, that you do not know where they are going to take you … you absolutely lose all fear.
It is a before and after. What happened to me kills your fear, makes you stronger. None of this is going to become a gag. I think we reached a point of no return in Cuba. ”
Dina Stars: the youtuber arrested live
“I hold the government responsible for everything that may happen to me. I have to go, they told me to accompany them. ”
It was the last thing that Dina Fernández, known on social networks as Dina Stars, said before cutting an interview with the Cuatro channel in Spain that was broadcast live.
Dina Stars in the Spanish television program “Todo es Mentira”
The young Cuban woman from 25 years, known on the island for her videos on YouTube, she was being detained by Cuban government agents, she explained live.
“I’m giving the super nervous interview, because they just mentioned me right now “, he said at the beginning of the contact.
Some 10 minutes later, in the middle of the talk in which the singer Yotuel Romero also participated, he asked for the floor to say: “ The second State security is out there. I have to go out. ”
The young woman returns to the painting to explain that she has to go to a police station. And that it holds the government responsible for what happens to it.
The Cuban police did not appear in the television broadcast.
Without However, her friends released a video in which the young woman was led to a patrol by two agents of the National Revolutionary Police.
Almost 24 hours later, the young woman reappeared on her social networks.
“I’m b Well, they didn’t mistreat me, they didn’t kidnap me. They took me for ‘instigation to commit a crime’, for promoting demonstration campaigns, but they didn’t treat me badly, “he explains on Instagram.
Uncertainty
Edy Suárez told BBC Mundo about the uncertainty that Dina Fernández’s family experienced when they did not know where she was or why they had taken her away, a situation that many other Cubans have been experiencing since last Sunday due to the numerous arrests of protesters on the island.
“I arrived the moment they took her away” , explains Suárez. They would transfer her to a nearby police station. But then they were told that they took her to another. And no one really knew where she was.
“Seeing the mother so desperate, because she did not know the true whereabouts of her daughter, someone was moved and this call occurred that we did not expect yesterday afternoon- night, “says Suárez from Havana.
” She could only say that she was fine, that she couldn’t say where she was, that she didn’t know if they were going to release her. But let us be calm, ”says Suárez.
The young woman lives in the municipality of San Miguel del Padrón, in the east of the Cuban capital , but recently she was staying in a house in Nuevo Vedado (west) from where she gave the interview to the Spanish channel Cuatro.
“I’m whole from head to toe. They did not mistreat me. I’m already home, I’m already with my family, ”Fernández said this Wednesday when he reappeared on his social networks.
A growing figure
In the last five years, since the Cuban population had less restricted access to the internet, the name of Dina Stars began to become known on social networks, mainly on YouTube.
“He began to grow there, little by little, and made a name for himself, as he was one of the first people who began to act as youtuber in Cuba. And it stood out for its freshness, ”says Suárez.
In 1200, both worked together in the series “10 lxs ”(007, which It is one of the first non-state productions to be broadcast on the island through YouTube.
“She has done very well as a result of that, because we discovered in her a very good actress,” says Suárez, who is also an actor and believes dor of the series.
Since last July 7, he began to point out the precarious health situation in Cuba due to the covid pandemic – 19 . And since the protests began last Sunday, he has intensified his publications.
That after a year and a peak of pandemic in Cuba we are so saturated shows that they have not taken the measures that were really needed in the country to combat the covid 19. What good is a curfew at 9 o’clock at night if in the morning and afternoon is when they are done
Suárez says that, like any figure that becomes public, there are those who “do not love her so much.” But he considers that in Cuba it is recognized that he is “brave” for raising his voice.
“She has shown that she has no filters to express what she wants to see”.
