Madrid/There are not 18, there are millions of us who want a change in Cubais the clear, direct and concise title with which the Cuba X Cuba civic thought center (CXC) has spread a message of support to The Touch and claimed an end to the harassment of the group of collaborators – some former, according to the director himself, José Jasán Nieves – of the medium.
The statement, published on the CXC website and social networks, denounces that the attack is “disguised as a dispute generated by the exchange rate,” but reveals “the attempt of an exhausted power to intimidate those who offer information and analysis.” The regime is, they argue, incapable of offering solutions to the current crisis, not only economic, but also financial and exchange rate. Although they do not mention it, the proof is the recent broadcast – twice this week – of the Cuadrando la Caja program, in which economists and experts from the ruling party admit that it is impossible to take the reins of the official foreign exchange market and that, when it is done – a process that was announced for 2025, which will conclude without it – no one is going to like the price of the dollar.
“Inflation, energy precariousness, the flight of talent, the collapse of the health system and the deterioration of infrastructure are not products of an editorial algorithm or an exchange rate table published on social networks; they are the result of failed policies for decades,” warns the group, which includes several economists and intellectuals, including Mauricio de Miranda Parrondo, Omar Everleny Pérez and Alina Bárbara López.
The statement highlights that there are already generations of journalists, activists or experts who have been repressed for dissenting from the regime.
The statement highlights that there are already generations of journalists, activists or experts who have been repressed for dissenting from the regime, if not forced to separate from their families because they have no other option than exile. “Faced with tangible proof of increasingly widespread unrest among Cubans, the official narrative attempts to reduce dissidence to ‘focuses manipulated from abroad,’” they reject.
CXC also praises the work of The Touchfor what it represents as a public service in the face of the mistake in which the Central Bank of Cuba – or its failure to appear – has led with exchange rates completely far from reality. Compared to the exchange rate for companies (1×24) and individuals (1×120), the US currency is being exchanged for about 440 pesos. “In Cuba, the truth circulates despite censorship and, as often happens, the more it is pursued, the more it is sought,” they explain.
The text also claims the duty to “support those who investigate, document and communicate” and accuses the Palace of the Revolution of fearing the word: “There are millions of us who aspire to a prosperous, plural and democratic Cuba, millions who know that the future is not forged by silencing voices, but by listening to them.”
The document comes a day after the ruling party’s campaign escalated against The Touchdisseminating with the complicity and help of all the state media, the photographs of the 18 people identified for “links” with the media. According to the authorities, those investigated can be accused of all types of crimes that transcend economic matters and reach mercenarism and terrorism. With the latter, they aspire to involve a foreign government, which they ask to extradite any of them if they are claimed.
“Several are wrongly placed in countries they have never been to or in educational centers where they have not studied”
However, at 18 it places them in three countries that would never – and that taking into account that the regime decides to claim them – send them to Cuba to be judged. Furthermore, the director of The Touch has sent a statement through which it wants to make it clear that some of those mentioned neither reside in the countries where the ruling party places them nor have they even set foot in them.
“Glenda Boza Ibarra, Yerisleidys Menéndez García, Jessica Domínguez Delgado, Sadiel Mederos Bermúdez, Enrique Torres Zamora and Janet Aguilar González have not been part of the team for a long time. For giving wrong information, several are wrongly placed in countries they have never been to or in educational centers where they have not studied,” Nieves alleges.
The founder of The Touch He affirms that at the beginning of November he suffered an act of repudiation by a small group of Cubans in Mexico and considers the threats of “extraterritorial actions” and “de facto banishment” of the regime intolerable, but affirms that despite the threats, those who remain linked to the media are not going to give in. “We will return the day our country is free. In the meantime, we will continue doing what bothers you so much and which are our tools for building the desired democracy: rigorous journalism, public service and counterpropaganda.”
