A couple of days ago Cuban police arrested Gorki Aguila. You don’t know who he is, that’s ok, neither did I. He is the lead singer of a rock group in Havana, who went from writing and performing songs that could be taken as obscure criticisms of the Castro government to writing and performing stuff that is very overtly crtitical of the Castro regime.
As expected the Castro government has clamped down on him, and he is to be tried on Friday, August 29th 2008 on charges of “peligrosidad social pre-delictiva”, or social dangerourness pre-crime. Think about that for a second. He is being tried not for crimes he has committed, and criticizing the government is a crime in Cuba, but for social crimes he might commit.
You can read more about it here.
I have been pleasantly surprised that the US and world media seems to have picked up this story. You can see another article about it and a photo of Gorki here , I think I need to get me one of those shirts. The shirt reads “59 the year of the error”, 1959 was the year Castro the First came to power.
Gorki’s group website is http://www.pornopararicardo .com/ , I broke the link because the picture on the cover is kind of not safe for work.