Not much has changed since Reinaldo Arenas' time.
By LGBT Cuba News Today
EDITORS NOTE:The following posts are from the blog LGBT Cuba News
Today.In These Times offers this selection in lieu of the article that
was to have been written by Mario José Delgado Gonzáles
(ultramarino321@yahoo.com), who was jailed in August for trying to
organize a Mr. Gay Havana contest. Delgado is the vice president of the
Reinaldo Arenas LGBT Memorial Foundation, a group named for the Cuban
poet and author of Before Night Falls.
JUNE 3, 2009
Several young homosexuals arrested in May are sentenced to prison
Several young gay people, arrested on May 15 on the Island hours before
the official celebrations of the Day Against Homophobia, were sentenced
to two to four years of prison, according to a press release from the
Reinaldo Arenas LGBT Memorial Foundation and the Cuban LGBT Committee
for Human Rights.
The organizations didn't specify the exact number of those sentenced.
The young people were part of a group of 58 homosexuals detained in a
raid called "Operacion Pio" (Operation Tweet), who were forced to sign
off on charges against them, fined and sent back to their provinces of
origin.
JUNE 4, 2009
Havana
"I don't want faggots walking around Havana—sooner or later I'm going to
throw you all in jail after I exhaust all the warnings I'm going to give
you," said Police Capt. Ángel of the Reina district, between San Nicolás
and Rayo Streets, after he arrested 58 young people for homosexuality,
according to José Luis, an HIV+ transvestite who was arrested four
blocks from his home for being homosexual.
"When I got to the station and asked why I'd been detained, an officer
tried to hit me—I'm not sure how I avoided it. During the day, I have no
complaints, but at night it's impossible for a transvestite to walk the
streets. We live in a great state of fear on the streets. They come and
detain you, just like that. And if you complain or defend yourself, it's
worse because they beat you.
"I was on the P7 bus when suddenly it was stopped. The police blocked
the transit bus and one of the officers came on the bus looking for
homosexuals. He made me and two others get off. I was dressed as a
woman. In the Reina district, the police are very violent and
aggressive; it's directed by Capt. Ángel. He hurled insults, told us to
shut up and hit us. The Captain said that if we wanted to walk around on
the streets, Mariela Castro [Raúl Castro's daughter, who runs the
CENESEX, Cuba's National Sex Education Center, and has started an
anti-homophobia campaign] would have to buy us our own island." …
JUNE 23, 2009
Havana
Thirty homosexuals are arrested around the Capitol Building.
Thirty homosexuals were arrested Saturday, June 13, when the National
Police from the Dragones station parked two Hyundai vans downstairs at
the Capitol Building, according to Amaury Cabodevilla Torriente, a
blogger and member of the Center for Human and Sexual Rights (formerly
Cuban Committee for LGBT Human Rights), an organization focused on
monitoring police activities against gays.
JULY 7, 2009
Seven young men are arrested in Playa del Chivo
Seven gay youths were arrested this Sunday in Playa del Chivo, outside
Havana, for gathering in a public bathing area.
Ignoring the the petition filed with the Ministry of Justice by the
board of directors of the Reinaldo Arenas LGBT Memorial Foundation
asking for a stop to the police persecution and arrests currently going
on in the capital's homosexual community, seven young gays were arrested
at Playa del Chivo for insisting on swimming in the public beach, said
Rene Alonso, 18, who was fined 30 pesos after the raid.
"We resisted being displaced; we didn't want to be forced out of the
beach. They don't have a right to kick us out just because we're
homosexuals. It's sad but true. The rest of the boys ran when they saw
the squad cars."
SEPTEMBER 1, 2009
Organization asks for help to produce gay event in Havana
After suffering persecution, arrest of its members and confiscation of
computers, the board of directors of the Reinaldo Arenas LGBT Memorial
Foundation asked for support from international LGBT organizations to
produce Havana's first Mr. Gay contest. Recently, the members of the
organizing committee of the contest were seized, beaten, arrested, and
had their equipment confiscated by members of state security and the
National Revolutionary Police. It happened as organizers met to go over
the final details of the contest at the home of Mario José Delgado
Gonzáles, a sociology student and the foundation's vice president. The
repressive actions resulted in the arrest of Delgado Gonzáles and
Belkis, also a university student and committee member, with the goal of
having the contest canceled. Mrs. Gonzáles, mother of Mario José, did
not know of her son's whereabouts for 12 days. In fact, he had been
detained by state security and was imprisoned at Villa Marista.
SEPTEMBER 2, 2009
Amidst Repression, Cuba Celebrates Mr. Gay Havana
After a 50 year wait, the Cuban queer community finally celebrated Mr.
Gay Havana.
Cuban government security forces and police tried to shut down the
cultural event. The repressive state forces beat organizers, arrested
activists, confiscated materials and, finally, banned the foundation's
vice president, Mario Jose Delgado Gonzalez, from continuing his
university studies in sociology. Delgado Gonzales had been jailed for
more than a week without charges after a raid on his home during an
organizing meeting. [He has since been released from jail, but is still
banned from the university.]
In the days prior to the Mr. Gay Havana event, the leadership, members
and supporters of the foundation underwent state persecution,
interrogations and intimidation with the explicit purpose of terrorizing
them and breaking up the organization. In spite of these repressive
actions, the contest took place August 29, at 2 p.m., on Chivo Beach, on
the other side of the Havana tunnel, usually one of the places of
greatest police persecution and hounding of queers in the capital.
The winners of the Mr. Gay Havana contest are:
THIRD PLACE: Rafael Chávez González, 21 years old, medical student.
SECOND PLACE: Roger de Cruz Caballero, 19 years old, library science
student.
FIRST PLACE: Asley Sarriá Arrondo, 21 years old, dancer and culinary
student.
Next year, the foundation and the Mr. Gay organizing committee seek
support to bring this cultural event to the interior of the country and
in this way conduct a nationwide Mr. Gay Cuba contest.
SEPTEMBER 10, 2009
Mr. Gay Havana, a medical student, detained for questioning
Rafael Chávez González, third place winner of the Mr. Gay Havana
contest, was detained last Thursday and interrogated by members of State
Security for participating in the illegal beauty contest, Mr. Gay
Havana, which took place August 29, in Playa del Chivo.
"They told me the Cuban LGBT Foundation was an organization seeking to
destroy the revolution, that the Mr. Gay contest was a distraction, one
of the many fallacies of capitalism, that it was not a serious contest
in any part of the world, and that they didn't understand how a medical
student, educated by the revolution, could take part in an event against
the revolution.
"They told me the best thing I could do was to make a public statement
saying everything was fraudulent, that what happened in Playa del Chivo
was an event organized by homosexual anti-revolutionaries in Florida,
and that they could prove that Efren Martinez, the homosexual
counter-revolutionary monkey, was behind it all so as to draw attention
to alleged human rights violations in Havana.
"They barely let me talk. It was impossible to make them see that the
event was a completely cultural thing, that we weren't being used by
anybody, that we'd been told many times by the organizers that it was
possible that there would be repercussions because of the event … we
heard about what had happened at the home of the foundation's vice
president, how the police beat them and confiscated the electronic
equipment in the home, which made some of those who were there flee in fear.
"They insulted me when I told them the contest had been open and held
with transparency, that it was the spectators who chose the winners, and
how I saw for myself how the foundation formatted the only memory stick
they had so they could offer it as a prize—a memory stick the government
sells for 30 to 40 CUCs [Cuban convertible currency, roughly equivalent
to the U.S. dollar], which would have been impossible for a student from
a typical family to buy.
"That's when they asked me if I was interested in continuing my medical
studies. They said all Cuban doctors have to be committed to the
revolution and they need to have an unbreakable revolutionary
conscience. They said they'd never allow a Cuban medical student to
support the counter-revolution being orchestrated in Florida.
"I just hope they don't ban me from studying medicine just because I
took part in a beauty contest."
INSIDE CUBA: Gay Life in Cuba -- In These Times (7 December 2009)
http://inthesetimes.com/article/5214/inside_cuba_gay_life_in_cuba
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