WEBVTT 0:00:04.224 --> 0:00:09.808 Repressive slaps and democratic prisons 0:00:12.210 --> 0:00:16.418 Catalan rapper Pablo Hasel will go to prison in the next few days 0:00:16.443 --> 0:00:21.607 after his conviction for alleged "glorification of terrorism and insults against the Crown 0:00:21.632 --> 0:00:25.607 and the institutions of the State". The great Spanish press is divided 0:00:25.632 --> 0:00:31.461 between the cold information from agencies and the enthusiastic justification of the sentence. 0:00:31.486 --> 0:00:35.506 It is the same press that silences that Spain is the state in the world 0:00:35.531 --> 0:00:38.069 with the most artists with prison sentences. 0:00:38.094 --> 0:00:41.892 And is the same one that, these days, made international news 0:00:41.917 --> 0:00:48.174 news when the Cuban Minister of Culture slapped the mobile phone of an individual who was besieging him: 0:00:48.199 --> 0:00:53.300 "The Cuban Minister of Culture attacked a group of activists during a peaceful protest", 0:00:53.325 --> 0:00:55.363 the newspaper "El Mundo" entitled. 0:00:55.388 --> 0:01:00.240 A simple slap, just a push, was condemned, in the second, 0:01:00.265 --> 0:01:04.682 by the Inter-American Press Association and by Human Rights Watch. 0:01:04.707 --> 0:01:09.495 The Amnesty International Director for the Americas described it as 0:01:09.520 --> 0:01:13.230 as a "disgusting act of violence by the (Cuban) Minister of Culture", 0:01:13.255 --> 0:01:19.148 showing the caricature that this NGO with a prestigious past has become. 0:01:19.173 --> 0:01:26.370 A few hours later, in order not to arouse suspicion, the conviction of the US Embassy arrived. 0:01:26.395 --> 0:01:29.993 The so-called “Cuban Observatory of Human Rights”, based in Madrid 0:01:30.018 --> 0:01:34.935 and supported by the White House with 250 thousand dollars a year, 0:01:34.960 --> 0:01:40.050 ), asked the US and the European Union for "public sanctions" for the minister 0:01:40.075 --> 0:01:45.304 for his "direct participation – in textual words - in violent acts 0:01:45.329 --> 0:01:49.958 that violate the Human Rights of intellectuals and artists”. 0:01:49.979 --> 0:01:54.779 The “dissident” Rosa María Payá, who receives, according to tax documents, 0:01:54.809 --> 0:01:59.609 30 thousand dollars a year from the US government for a 25-hour work week, 0:01:59.629 --> 0:02:05.450 invented that there were “young people beaten, detained 0:02:05.475 --> 0:02:09.505 and disappeared by the Cuban political police". 0:02:09.530 --> 0:02:16.401 Several deputies from European Union even demanded the suspension of the current Political Dialogue 0:02:16.426 --> 0:02:18.575 and Cooperation Agreement with Havana. 0:02:18.600 --> 0:02:23.454 Are we facing the most repressive and bloody slap in the history? 0:02:23.479 --> 0:02:27.606 Or is it, rather, a new cheap assembly of those who 0:02:27.631 --> 0:02:32.913 live off Washington's money in Cuba? Well, it will be, once again, the second one. 0:02:32.938 --> 0:02:37.190 Let's get to the facts. Last Wednesday, a meeting of the Vice President of Culture of Cuba, Fernando Rojas, 0:02:37.215 --> 0:02:40.822 was scheduled 0:02:40.847 --> 0:02:45.267 with three representatives of a group of artists opposed to the government. 0:02:45.292 --> 0:02:49.107 But not three showed up, but twenty two. 0:02:49.132 --> 0:02:54.170 They made a call to the deputy minister from the street and 0:02:54.195 --> 0:03:00.185 they broadcast it live on social networks without his knowledge. On it, we can hear how Rojas in a cordial tone 0:03:00.210 --> 0:03:07.668 proposes to receive them at 12 noon and invites them to go to the Ministry facilities. 0:03:07.693 --> 0:03:13.574 Not at the agreed three, but at twenty two. Later he went out into the street and reiterated 0:03:13.599 --> 0:03:19.931 in several more times the invitation. The group challenges him, laughter and insults are heard. 0:03:19.956 --> 0:03:26.783 They recorded the vice minister with their cell phones and refused to enter, demanding to record everything 0:03:26.808 --> 0:03:33.662 with their phones inside. As would be allowed in the meeting with a deputy minister in any country in the world, 0:03:33.687 --> 0:03:34.788 right? 0:03:34.813 --> 0:03:41.715 The objective was obvious: to prevent the meeting and to provoke even generate an incident, 0:03:41.740 --> 0:03:48.301 (however trivial it would be) to turn it in news through international networks and media. 0:03:48.326 --> 0:03:54.519 would be) to turn it in news through international networks and media. That's where digital media paid for by US government agencies came into play, 0:03:54.544 --> 0:04:00.081 whose "correspondents" were nine, almost half of the group. 0:04:00.106 --> 0:04:05.682 The supposed "independent journalist", whose cell phone was removed by the minister, is Mauricio Mendoza, 0:04:05.707 --> 0:04:10.566 who is paid by "Diario de Cuba", a website that the White House finances 0:04:10.591 --> 0:04:16.351 with U$S 350.000 a year to support its policy of blocking the island. 0:04:16.376 --> 0:04:22.292 In Cuba there has been an intense dialogue between the Ministry of Culture 0:04:22.317 --> 0:04:26.672 and hundreds of artists from all sectors throughout the country for the last two months. 0:04:26.697 --> 0:04:32.260 A dialogue that this small group, linked to the Washington agenda, had decided to break away. 0:04:32.285 --> 0:04:38.498 By the way, the journalist Cristian Camilo Illera was assassinated in Colombia the same day, 0:04:38.523 --> 0:04:45.281 like 14 leaders and human rights defenders in the few days that we have been in 2021 0:04:45.306 --> 0:04:50.059 But perhaps the repressive and dictatorial slap of a minister is necessary 0:04:50.084 --> 0:04:57.671 for the international press - the Spanish one in particular - to deign to inform us about it. 0:04:57.696 --> 0:05:01.277 Translated and subtituled by Laura V. Mor.