Women who have denounced having been abused by the Cuban troubadour Fernando Bécquer, accompanied by militants, academics and feminist organizations, have today published a letter denouncing the impunity of the singer-songwriter. The first testimonies related to this case were published in December 2021 in the Magazine The sneeze. The new public complaint, published on social networks, has been signed by seven of the women witnesses accompanied by the Cuban platform “Yo Sí Te Creo en Cuba”, the “Eva Tropa” network, Cuban and Latin American academics, activists, journalists and psychologists. among which are Ailynn Torres Santana (Academician and feminist activist), Marta María Ramírez (Cuban autonomous journalist and feminist), María Santucho (Coordinator of the Pablo de la Torriente Brau Cultural Center), Franci Sánchez Zambrano (Feminist and activist-Venezuela) , Sandra Álvarez Ramírez (Psychologist and feminist), Kianay Anandra Pérez (Journalist) and Verónica Gago (Researcher and member of the collective “Ni Una Menos”-Argentina).
The text, an open letter to Fernando Bécquer, questions the impunity of the troubadour and his denial of the facts in the face of public and formal complaints, in addition to demanding legal justice and reparation for the physical and moral damage caused. In the same way, the letter emphasizes that the troubadour made use of his power of authority as a man and a religious practitioner to commit the crimes of rape and abuse against the complainants.
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Background
On December 8, 2021, a report published by The sneeze made visible the testimonies of five women who publicly denounced Fernando Bécquer for crimes of gender violence. 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 Fernando Bécquer.
#YoSiTeCreo: repercussions, ramifications and contexts of the “Bécquer case”
Since then, feminist alliances and support networks have spoken out through various channels, especially on social networks, in solidarity with the complainants and witnesses. In the same way, companions of the case, such as the freelance journalist Marta María Ramírez, have reported in their personal profiles on Facebook practices of digital harassment by profiles that have sent them messages to discourage public complaints by questioning the veracity of the relats.
Bécquer case and the accompaniment of criminal proceedings for gender violence
We have confirmed that there has been at least one criminal complaint related to the case, made by one of the testimonies on December 11, 2021, but so far no details of the process have been released. In the letter published today, the revictimization of the women who accuse him of abuse and the impunity that Bécquer enjoys to this day are denounced: “Today we denounce that the survivors are revictimized by you, who abused us. Meanwhile, you continue to flaunt impunity and the power of being a man, religious and with the protection and legitimacy that a stage gives you. ”
