Freelance journalist and contributor to 14ymedio Ricardo Fernández has been in Germany with his family since last August, waiting to obtain political asylum. The reporter, who suffered a strong siege from the political police, acknowledges that so much pressure has left him with a damaged soul.
Fernández has lived through years of harassment and arbitrary arrests. Now, from a refugee camp in Zirndorf in the state of Bavaria, he details the pressures he has felt in recent months. “Until then, it had been me who had put myself at risk for my ideals, but since the beginning of 2022, the new target of the Department of State Security was my wife, my mother-in-law and my eldest daughter.”
By the month of May “the situation had already become unsustainable and I couldn’t sacrifice my family members for a fight they didn’t choose.” Fernández acknowledges that he did not have “the right to offer the lives of others” due to his personal determination to do independent journalism under a regime allergic to freedom of information.
Once the decision to leave the Island was made, the paperwork began to obtain passports and put family affairs in order. “When the Department of State Security found out that it was in this process, the harassment multiplied.” A three-hour detention in the third Police Unit of Camagüey, on July 14, confirmed the need to leave as soon as possible.
By the month of May “the situation had already become unsustainable and I could not sacrifice the members of my family for a fight that they did not choose”
It was not the first time the reporter had been arrested. In July 2019 he spent nine days in a dungeon for the simple fact of visiting the headquarters of the Ladies in White Movement in the Havana neighborhood of Lawton. From that arrest he came out with a warning document for being “illegally” in the Cuban capital, a document that he refused to sign. Last July she also received new threats.
“They gave me the ultimatum that I had one month to leave the country. I am sure that in previous years they would not have told me that way, because I would have flatly refused, but when they saw me start the process they jumped on me like dogs against an injured animal. Even so, the political police withheld the family’s passports and only handed them over to them at the end of July.
Boarding the plane, feeling the ship take off and flying over the Atlantic were bittersweet moments for Fernández, his wife and their three children. On the one hand, they were relieved to leave the police threats behind, but on the other hand, the question of what would become of their lives from that day on was opened up before them. They didn’t have a single euro on them.
“The asylum process in Germany, after it has been approved by the police authorities in charge of carrying out the express deportation of those who cannot present evidence of persecution, is quite simple, and the organization is impressive,” he explains to this newspaper. “There is a high volume of refugee claims, mainly from Ukrainian families fleeing the war.”
In the refugee center where the reporter is waiting for a response to his case, there are not many Cubans. The days are spent there in a peculiar way: “Because of the time difference with Cuba and the desire to talk with our loved ones, we sleep little at night. During the day we focus on adapting to this reality.”
“My priority is to get my family to heal from the psychological damage it has suffered for years of persecution, while I support my country in everything that can help it”
Although the surprise at everything new seems to have no end, Fernández and his relatives have also realized that they are “broken inside.” “When we meet to share a precariously brewed coffee, we laugh at our own wounds and compare the hoarding habits that we carry in our souls.”
“Some keep boxes of bottled water, others sleep with the goodies that accumulate. Everyone stores what they can as if there were no more tomorrow. We laugh at that, avoiding the topics that break our souls. Finally the night comes and every who retreats to connect with their loved ones left behind.
Now, the list of urgencies is very clear for the reporter: “My priority is to get my family to heal from the psychological damage it has suffered for years of persecution, while supporting my country in everything that can help it” . In the midst of the uncertainty of what will happen to him and his family in the coming days, he avoids thinking of an option in which he does not receive asylum and bets that “the hopes of a life in peace will flourish.”
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