MIAMI, United States. – A wave of messages of support from artists, activists and press organizations has spread on social networks to demand the release of Kamil Zayas Pérez and Ernesto Ricardo Medina, members of the independent audiovisual project El4ticoarrested in the province of Holguín on February 6.
Among the publications spread on Facebook, the singer Danay Suárez wrote: “It is not a crime to express ideas. It is a crime to pursue them. Ernesto and Kamil, young creators of the El4tico project, were detained in Holguín by the Cuban dictatorship for exercising a basic right: to think, question and express what they experience.” In the same message he added: “Silence is also complicity. Sharing is a form of resistance.”
The singer Leoni Torres also joined the claim on networks: “These brave boys who only make the country feel the pain they are experiencing were arrested yesterday. Whatever happens to them we directly blame the Cuban leaders.”
The renowned actor Luis Alberto García, for his part, public: “This young man [Kamil] has been arrested. Another one. He explains so well what he defends and feels that he leaves me no choice but to respect him a lot and demand that he be released. It is terrible to capture ideas, whatever they are.”
García Novoa alludes to a statement written by Zayas before being arrested, which he shares in his publication.
“If you are seeing or reading this, it is because they finally found a way to trap me, to try to put the temporary gag on me,” says the text signed by the young man. “I declare that this detention is arbitrary, cowardly, predictable. I demand respect for due process, immediate information about where I am and how I am, and my release without conditions, because I have not committed any crime other than thinking with my own head,” he also assures.
Also the Christian singer Dairon Gavilán spoke on Facebook and demanded the release of the two young people.
In parallel, organizations such as Cubalex Legal Information Center They denounced what happened as a case of arbitrary detention and raid. Meanwhile, Justice 11J issued a public alert about the arrest and the operation.
The SIP stated that Zayas and Medina “have opened an independent space for expression, analysis and opinion” and demanded “their immediate release and the cessation of persecution” against those who peacefully exercise their right to inform and express their opinion. The detention, according to human rights organizations, is part of a broader context of harassment and short-term arrests against critical voices on the Island.
