The collective of “survivors/victims” of the troubadour Fernando Becquer delivered to the Minister of Culture of Cuba, Alpidio Alonso Grau, an open letter that demands justice for more than twenty women abused and violated by the singer for more than 20 years in Cuba and different Latin American countries.
The event occurred on April 30 in the capital of Argentina, within the framework of the 46th International Book Fair of Buenos Aires, which has Havana as the Guest of Honor City, according to what was published yesterday in its profile. Facebook by Paula Andrea Ramírez Ramírez, one of the victims of the Cuban troubadour.
According to the story, Paula Andrea Ramírez gave Alonso Grau the letter with more than 250 signatures that accompany the request for justice. The meeting took place in the middle of an exchange facilitated by María Santucho, coordinator of the Pablo de la Torriente Brau Center, who took the opportunity to deliver a copy of the open letter to Abel Prieto, president of Casa de las Américas, and also to the Cuban ambassador in Argentina. Pedro Pablo Prada.
Paula Andrea Ramírez tells: «I told him that Fernando had abused me in 2006 in Colombia. That what he did to me is classified as a sexual crime in the Colombian penal code, but that in order to judge him he had to be extradited.
The victim adds that her purpose is to add the personal claim to that of others who have denounced Bécquer in Cuba, but that justice on the island has not given her guarantees to be able to deliver her testimonies and evidence. Through her profile on her social network, Ramírez affirms that since last December she has been accompanied by a team from the Argentine Ministry of Women.
He adds that Minister Alonso Grau assured him that the Cuban justice system was in charge of the case and that, if the accusations are proven, the full weight of the law will fall on Bécquer. Also, the Cuban Minister of Culture confirmed that the artist could not get on stage, although no measure that prevents him from going out on the street and frequenting public places weighs on him.
In turn, the head of Culture would have advised the victims to denounce the harassment they receive from Bécquer through some social network profiles presumably linked to him, according to Paula Andrea Ramírez and María Santucho.
Bécquer case and the accompaniment of criminal proceedings for gender violence
In his text, Ramírez “immensely” thanks Minister Alonso for “having listened to me” and for having received the letter. In addition, he confesses to having perceived on the part of the official “a genuine interest and concern for everything that happened.” “I believe him and I trust everything he told me,” she added, who at that time was accompanied by her partner Marcelo López Jordán, father of her daughter, who collected the graphic testimonies of the exchange.
Ramírez ratifies in his text that, although he has not been able to access “legal” institutional justice, he will continue betting that “justice and social reparation reach us, so that no other woman is a victim of Fernando Bécquer.”
He also pointed out that from the group of survivors, “the different acts of violence that followers and defenders of Fernando Bécquer have been carrying out on social networks will continue to be denounced under the profile “Elbecquer Decuba”, “Fernando Becquer” or from a profile called “Rolando Ramos”.
In this sense, Paula Andrea Ramírez recalled that at least three women living in Cuba filed complaints about “the harassment received (from Bécquer) in private Facebook messages” to the Computer Network Security Office (OSRI), from where they were informed They would file their complaints. “When we asked for the number under which the complaint had been filed, we had no response,” she wrote.
“It is our intention that until there is a firm pronouncement from the justice system, all defense of the abuser be made visible and denounced,” Ramírez stressed.
the already known Becquer case broke out on December 8, 2021 when the digital magazine The sneeze published a report in which he made visible the testimonies of five women who publicly denounced the Cuban troubadour Fernando Bécquer for abuse and sexual assault. So, no complaint against the troubadour had yet been formally registered.
Days later, on December 13, the magazine Alma mater made public the first complaint for the facts, presented by the writer Elaine Vilar Madruga, to the Prosecutor’s Office of the Republic of Cuba, with the support and guidance of the Gender and Feminism Commission of the National Union of Writers and Artists of Cuba (UNEAC).
On March 21, 2022 The Sneeze public 16 new testimonies of women who claim to have been abused by the troubadour.
“Shame and fear are two tools that abusers use so that their victims do not talk about what happened, so I draw strength, I swallow my shame and I don’t shut up and scream and speak,” Paula Andrea Ramírez emphasized in her post.
