Oliver Basciano: Cuban artists on hunger strike after Tania Bruguera arrest
Three Cuban artists
including Tania Bruguera have gone on hunger strike in protest at a new law
that will require all artists and musicians to apply for government-issued
licences. Described
by Amnesty International as “dystopian”, the law, Decree 349, is expected
to be ratified this month by Miguel
Díaz-Canel, the country’s president.
Bruguera, whose work
currently fills the Turbine Hall at London’s Tate Modern, was taken by police
from her home in the Cuban capital on Monday morning ahead of a planned
demonstration outside the ministry of culture. Her fellow artists Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Yanelys
Núñez Leyvawere also picked up on the street by police on Monday and
transported to the Vivac prison on the outskirts of Havana, a move that
suggests they will be detained for a longer period.
Bruguera was released
within 24 hours but taken back into custody as she headed to the ministry of
culture to protest. All three – along with fellow activists Amaury
Pacheco and Michel
Matos – have vowed to go on hunger strike. “The decree
criminalises independent art activity,” the Cuban-American artist Coco Fusco says. “It allows a cadre of
roving censors to go around issuing fines, to take away your equipment. These
are not liberal individuals – if you are a rap musician and they simply don’t
like your lyrics, they will shut you down. These draconian actions already take
place but this law systemises it.”
Decree 349 marks a
backwards step from a number of reforms made by Raúl Castro, after the former
president met with Barack Obama in 2015 – only the second time in 50 years a
Cuban leader had met his US counterpart. The ensuing optimism has been
short-lived. In May – a month after Díaz-Canel became the first leader from
outside the Castro family since the revolution in 1959 – the Cuban government
dismissed recommendations by the United Nations that it establish an
independent national human rights institution, release political prisoners and
end the harassment of artists and activists... read more:
