More than 300 writers and artists worldwide urged the Cuban government to immediately release the artists detained after the July 11 protests, in a letter published Wednesday with the support of PEN International, PEN America’s Artists at Risk Connection and Human Rights Watch.
“The Cuban government should immediately stop its unrelenting abuses against artists, release all arbitrarily detained artists, and drop all charges against them,” demanded the signatories of the open letter, entitled “Let artists live and work freely.”
The statement highlights that Cuban artists united in the San Isidro and 27N movements have drawn attention “to the Cuban government’s callous disregard for human rights, partially laying the foundation for the massive protests that erupted across the country on July 11, 2021.”
Several artists were arrested that day, including Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, the independent artist who challenged the government with his public performances; rapper Maykel Castillo, known as “Osorbo,” and music student Abel Lescay. All three have been in jail ever since.
While in prison, Castillo won the Latin Grammy award for best song of the year as one of the authors of “Patria y Vida,” a musical theme that inspired those who demonstrated against the island’s government.
“Throwing artists in jail or exiling them from the country forever — in response to their art, words and ideas — is abusive and inhumane,” the letter said. “Art should be free from censorship and repression, in Cuba and everywhere.”
A diverse group of renowned names in literature, film and the arts around the world signed the letter, including Oscar and Nobel Prize winners. Some are also activists or dissident artists, like the Ukrainian filmmaker Oleg Sentsov, jailed for his political ideas, and the Chinese cartoonist artist Badiucao.
Actors Meryl Streep, Alec Baldwin and John Lithgow; writers Paul Auster, J. M. Coetzee, Jonathan Franzen and Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie; and American cartoonist Jules Feiffer are among the signers.
A group of Latin American writers and filmmakers — including Mario Vargas Llosa, Isabel Allende, Elena Poniatowska, Gioconda Belli, Sergio Ramírez, and Arturo Ripstein — also supported the statement.
Cuban visual artist Hamlet Lavastida, who was arrested on the island this year and forced to leave the country after several months in the state security prison in Havana, is one of the letter’s signatories. Following the protests, other writers and artists such as Tania Bruguera were placed under house arrest and harassed by the authorities. Bruguera, who left the island to accept a job at Harvard, also signed the statement.
“The Cuban government’s repression of artists shows its extreme intolerance of criticism and dissent,” said Juan Pappier, senior researcher for the Americas at Human Rights Watch. “For years, the regime has used some artists from around the world to distract from their human rights record while persecuting and imprisoning independent artists in their country. Today, 338 artists signed this declaration and said ‘enough is enough.’ ”
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