Cuban government systematically targets Cuban artists, including more than 1,120 artists and creatives who participated in the July 11 protests. Several dozen have reportedly been arrested, detained, or placed under house arrest. Several remain in detention and face bogus criminal charges.
“There is no justification for persecuting artists for peacefully expressing their views. We call on the Cuban government to respect the fundamental role that art and artists play in society and immediately stop harassing artists for engaging in political and social critiques that are not in line with the government’s rigid ideology.”
Over 300 prominent figures from the arts, among them Meryl Streep, Orhan Pamuk, Paul Auster, Elena Poniatowska, Isabel Allende, Jules Feiffer, and Khaled Hosseini, as well as notable Cuban artists, including Tania Bruguera, Coco Fusco, and Hamlet Lavastida are calling on the Cuban government to immediately stop its abuses against Cuban artists. The open letter from December 8th has been co-signed by PEN International, the Artists at Risk Connection (ARC) at PEN America, and Human Rights Watch.
The letter has been published in English, Español, Français, Português, Deutsch.
Source: Artists at Risk Connection
A report, edited by Pelin Çakır and introduced September 2021 by Martin Roth-Initiative (MRI) and Institut für Auslandsbeziehungen (ifa), Germany, explores risks and restrictions for artistic freedom and mobility beyond the Covid-19 Crisis. By learning from the recent experiences, and particularly from restrictive contexts such as Turkey, Learning from the Pandemic explores how to support artists and maintain spaces of artistic freedom despite these circumstances. The full report is now available in English.
