HAVANA TIMES – Writers and artists, including Argentine composer Fito Paez, Cuban novelist Leonardo Padura, and Cuban filmmaker Fernando Pérez, have signed a letter condemning the police violence exercised on May 18, 2024, against anthropologist Jenny Pantoja and historian and essayist Alina Barbara López. López is the co-director of CubaXCuba — Civic Thought Laboratory — and both were traveling from Matanzas to Havana to protest publicly and peacefully.
The letter is signed by more than 220 personalities who pointed out that “the use of force, the criminalization of dissent, and imprisonment do not solve the real problems of Cubans.” Among the signatories are musicians, journalists, filmmakers, sociologists, entrepreneurs, architects, doctors, engineers, digital creators, activists, and retirees.
The text of the letter expresses solidarity with the political prisoners in Cuba and with those who have suffered from the lack of guarantees to exercise dissent in the country. “Hundreds of Cubans, a large part of them young people, have been prosecuted and imprisoned just for exercising these constitutional rights, with the suffering that this implies for numerous families. In this way, the consequ
