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On November 26, 2020, the Cuban police ended the confinement of the San Isidro Movement at number 955 Damas Street in Old Havana, where activists, musicians and artists were stationed to denounce the arbitrary detention of rapper Denis Solís and the lack of freedom of expression. Three years later, we received one of the protagonists of that bull run at Escala in Paris, Carlos Manuel Álvarez.
The Cuban journalist and writer Carlos Manuel Álvarez (Matanzas, 1989), founder of the magazine El Estornudo and collaborator in several international media such as El País and The New York Times, traveled to Europe to promote his latest book ‘Los Intrusos’, Anagrama de Crónica 2022 award on the events of the San Isidro Movement, as well as his book ‘La Tribu’, published in Spanish in 2017 but which has just been translated into French as ‘Les endurants’ by the Bayard publishing house.
During his time in Paris, we took the opportunity to take stock with this great chronicler of Cuban society about what that movement entailed and what it generated. The trigger for this protest was the arrest of musician Denis Solís, who is currently in exile in Europe.
His arrest and sentence on November 11, 2020 to eight months in prison was the trigger for a group of artists and intellectuals from the San Isidro Movement to lock themselves up on November 16 to demand their release. Some went on hunger strike; others thirst strike. At that time, Carlos Manuel Álvarez was in New York and did not hesitate to take a flight to Havana and, once in Cuba, a taxi to the place of the bullfight.
“I was part of the group of artists and journalists who had been, let’s say, pushing the limits of political dissidence somewhat in recent years (…) Many of us were away at that time. I took a flight, I never thought I was going to to be able to enter because there was a police cordon, but on that date I think that State security was leaving some lines open. I was talking to some people who were inside, they showed me the door and I simply started running, somewhat tragicomic,” he recalls. .
Maikel Osorbo and Luis Manuel Otero remain in jail
On November 27, the police cleared the place, some were detained and interrogated. Many had to go into exile. “There are two people imprisoned. Perhaps the most visible faces, who are the rapper Maikel Osorbo and the artist Luis Manuel Otero. My friend Yasser Castellanos lives almost in exile, that is, he barely leaves his house in Havana. The rest of us are already exiled outside the protest. There are more than a thousand political prisoners now on the island, the result of other protests that came later. Among them, those of July 2021,” denounces Álvarez.
“I think the result in terms of civil society and others is significant because the next day there was a protest of about 300 people for the first time, on November 27, 2020 outside the Ministry of Culture, demanding rights of expression, freedom of political prisoners And well, from the San Isidro Movement a wave of protests was unleashed that ended with massive demonstrations in July 2021 on the island,” analyzes the writer, who currently lives in New York, from where he tries to continue telling the chronicles of Cuban society, although now from abroad.
“There are things that are already out of my reach, like being on the ground, interviewing people in the country. However, there are other issues that always end up tearing the island somewhat apart. We have suffered an exodus in recent years of 450,000 people, three times more than in the Mariel era, it is scandalous. So there are also things to tell outside the country that also concern the country, even if they are not happening in its territory,” he says.
When asked if the barracks were worth it, Carlos Manuel Álvarez is emphatic: “I have no doubt that it was worth it. I think there is a change in the civic consciousness of Cubans. It was fundamental both within the country and also for exile. I think he articulated new narratives. I think he pushed limits. I also think there is a certain openness to the internet and so on, which allows a spread of protests and dissidence that did not exist before,” says the writer and journalist.
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