With bare hands – the legacy of Oswaldo Payá
I’ve often wondered, what does it take for a lone individual to stand up to a totalitarian system, and to risk it all for the right to speak and associate… Read more »
Category: Cuba
Payá’s lesson – ‘Cubans have to change Cuba themselves’
Pulitzer Prize winning author David E. Hoffman has written a “riveting” biography of leading dissident Oswaldo Payá – ‘Cuba’s Vaclav Havel’ – whose Varela Project defied Fidel Castro’s Communist regime,… Read more »
Cuba’s medical diplomacy feeds authoritarian narratives
Cuba has historically leveraged its healthcare sector to promote the Cuban Communist Party’s image, offer low-income countries an alternative source of assistance, and counteract pressure on foreign actors to condemn Cuba’s autocracy,… Read more »
New culture of dissent remaking Cuba’s politics?
Living conditions in Cuba systematically deteriorated over the past decades. Many troubles could be avoided in the future if better political and economic institutions were established on the island, the… Read more »
What happened to Cuba’s pro-democracy protests?
In 2010 Cuba’s Castro regime began releasing journalists and human rights activists, most of whom it had imprisoned seven years earlier during the Black Spring crackdown on political dissent, notes… Read more »
Cuba’s San Isidro leader makes Time’s 100 Most Influential list
Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara’s art, his unignorable fight for freedom of expression and his uncompromising stance against autocracy reveal the power of resistance, Chinese dissident artist Ai Weiwei writes for… Read more »
What prospects for democracy in Cuba?
The Covid-19 pandemic combined with economic crisis and deteriorating living conditions has resulted in widespread protests in Cuba against the regime and the lack of basic goods and services, specifically… Read more »
Singing Cuba’s political story: Tired regime, fresh opposition
Happy workers in sugar fields. The dashing Che Guevara. Bearded heroes clutching AK-47s. And, of course, Fidel Castro. Love it or hate it, the Cuban revolution has been one of… Read more »
How to maintain Cuba’s protest momentum
In formulating a response to the recent protests in Cuba, the U.S. administration should listen to activists on the ground, argues Amalia Dache, an Afro-Cuban American associate professor at the… Read more »
Is Cuba’s Communist Party finally losing its grip?
The Cuban Communist Party’s days of unquestioned hegemony are over, a normally sympathetic commentator suggests. As Cuba’s authoritarian government clamps down on Internet access, a handful of U.S. lawmakers are… Read more »