MIAMI, United States. – The Cuban rapper and plastic artist Fernando Almenares Rivera, known as Nando Obdc, was arrested this Tuesday, December 31 in Havana for alleged links to “acts of terrorism against the State,” according to family sources in contact with him. CubaNet.
According to his wife’s statement, the State Security agents who detained him stated that there were “suspicions” of his participation in criminal activities against the Government.
Until the publication of this note, his exact whereabouts and the formal charges against him were unknown.
Nando Obdc, 34 years old and from the San Agustín district, in the Havana municipality of La Lisa, is known for his artistic activism, in which he combines protest rap and plastic arts with political content. It has also been linked to independent artists on the scene underground Cuban, like the rapper Al2 The Villager and the graffiti artist The Sixth.
Nando Obdc’s career is also marked by repeated acts of harassment and attempts to silence his work. According to has reported in interviewsthe Cuban political police have detained, beaten and threatened him on several occasions. However, with his project Arte Prohibido, the rapper has promoted initiatives that seek to make visible censorship and the limits on freedom of expression in Cuba, as well as its impact on the most vulnerable communities.
In recent years, the rapper has been involved in various campaigns and projects, including 27N, Exprésate and Fuego contra el Fuego, although he is not formally involved in any specific movement.
Several years ago he tried to emigrate to the United States from Mexico, where he obtained an artist exchange scholarship, but he was deported to Cuba under the protection of the Mexican authorities in the 2016 Memorandum of Understanding between the governments of Raúl Castro and Enrique Peña Nieto to “guarantee a regular, orderly and safe migratory flow.” After his forced return, the pressure on him increased.
Among the multiple incidents that he has reported, Nando Obdc referred in an interview with YucaByte to a beating suffered on July 12, 2021, allegedly by State Security agents, after wearing a sweater with the word “EXPRESS YOURSELF” next to the United States flag.
In the same interview, he confessed that the ban on his works and the threats from the Government encouraged him even more to continue his activism. “For certain human beings, prohibition is an invitation to do things,” he said. He added that his decision to speak out also responded to the experience of growing up in a context where “people complain about the Government at home, but are afraid to say it publicly.”
