[ad_1]
Two Canadian travelers said they were shocked last month when they booked a Sunwing vacation to Cuba and one found it turned down because of Facebook comments criticizing the country’s unelected government.
About 1.3 million Canadians visit Cuba in an average year; Canadians visit Cuba more than any other country. Most have nothing to do with repressive organs of the state. But the situation is very different for Canadians born in Cuba.
Cuban-born Toronto resident Glenda Corella Cespedes told CBC News she was traveling with her non-Cuban friend Mary Guaragna to attend her sister’s wedding. She said she was carrying a suitcase filled with medicine and supplies for her mother, who had recently undergone chemotherapy for lung cancer, and for a sick family friend.
Corella Cespedes said she has a Canadian passport but knows that, as a Cuban citizen, she must enter Cuba with a Cuban passport. Cuba charges its citizens $360 for a passport and another $160 every two years. Corella Cespedes said he had paid the fee recently and had the documents.
‘He knows what he’s doing’
The two landed at Frank Pais Airport in Holguin, Cuba on March 7 “just before 9:00 p.m.,” said Corella Cespedes, adding that she was “happy that I was going to see my sister, to be able to send my wedding suit, medicine, and all the things I brought for the family.
“Then I saw five immigration officers come on the plane and say everyone can get off except Glenda Corella Cespedes.”
His friend Mary Guaragna told the CBC that “at that point, we both kind of looked at each other and became quite concerned. I mean, I’m white as a ghost and Glenda is more than me.
“The Canadians coming off the plane just looked at us like, you know, we might be terrorists. We felt bad.”
The woman said one of the officers took Corella Cespedes’ passport and left it on the plane for about 20 minutes while the cleaners went up and got to work. A man who appeared to be a more senior immigration official then boarded the ship, Guaragna said, and “handed Glenda a piece of paper that said ‘denial.’ Without any explanation at all.
“And I said to this guy, who speaks English very well, ‘What’s the problem?’ In my mind, as a Canadian, [I was] think we can debark, move somewhere, talk to them, maybe even pay the fine and allow my friend to continue with her vacation.
“And he just said, ‘He knows what he’s doing, he knows what he’s doing.’ And that’s when I saw Glenda and Glenda signaled me not to say anything more.
‘Don’t post any more’
Corella Cespedes said her troubles began when she liked a Facebook comment criticizing a Communist Party supporter affiliated with Gibara who worked as a doctor at a local hospital where Corella Cespedes used to work as a nurse.
The doctor was part of a three-woman musical group that performed for Cuban Prime Minister Manuel Marrero when he visited earlier this year. After posting a video of the performance, the doctor was criticized on social media for serenading Marrero instead of pressuring him about the condition of the hospital and the lack of medicine and food for patients. Some critical comments came from former Gibara residents who now live outside of Cuba.
The original video has been removed.
Corella Cespedes said her parents have since received warnings from local Communist Party members to tell their daughter to stop commenting and posting.
After being expelled from Cuba, he also received messages via WhatsApp offering “advice” from a man who identified himself as Jose Manuel Santos.
“Take my advice,” he wrote on March 29. “You have parents here and you have nieces, nephews and cousins. Don’t put anything else on your (Facebook) wall.”
“You’re banned for two years but if you keep showing things on your wall it will change your life. You have your mother here. Behave for me.”
The Cuban Embassy in Canada was closed in February for an unspecified period and calls to the Ministry of the Interior in Cuba went unanswered.
Cuba bans entry more often: lawyers
Laritza Diversent, a Cuban lawyer now living in the US, said the Cuban government is increasingly using the travel ban to stifle criticism from the Cuban diaspora – criticism that has grown louder since anti-government protests on July 11, 2021.
“Not all cases are about criticism on social media,” he said. “This is a control mechanism against emigrants.” He said Cubans who defected while on overseas missions and “balseros” — migrants who fled Cuba on rafts — had been targets of the measure in the past.
“Since July 11, it’s more common for people to criticize on social media,” he added.
A month after the protests, Cuba’s Ministry of Communications issued Resolution 105, which allows the government to treat criticism of officials on social media as cyberattacks.
The Cuban government is sensitive to the fact that criticism from Cubans outside of Cuba is increasingly filtering back to Cuba through social media.
“After July 11, the state implemented some norms that allow it to track the comments of citizens and remain on electronic alert,” said Diversent. “Canada, since July 11, has been one of the countries where Cuban exiles are most active in social networks.”
No compensation, no appeal
Glenda Corella Cespedes is one of the Cuban-Canadians inspired to speak out about the events of July 11, 2021.
He came to Canada in 2012, when the Cuban government finally agreed to his request to leave the country, eight years earlier.
“I was silent for a long time. I just went on with my life,” he said, adding that he became more active after witnessing the day’s events.
“Just for shouting freedom, because we shout we want to eat, defenseless people who don’t have sticks or stones to defend themselves are attacked by the police and minorities who serve the government to oppress the people,” he said.
He said he had no intention of asking the Cuban government to review his decision. In any event, Diversent said, there is no mechanism to do so.
“They have unlimited discretion, no judicial oversight,” he said. “If they deny me entry, there’s no way to make a claim in court, and there’s no way my family in Cuba can start fighting the decision.”
Family held ‘hostage’
Diversent itself has been subject to similar restrictions since the Cuban government forced its legal rights organization, Cubalex, to disband in 2016 and forced it into exile a year later. CBC News spoke with him in San Jose, Costa Rica.
“It’s been five years since I was allowed to hug my mother,” he said.
Diversent said agents of the State Security (Seguridad del Estado) have visited the mother three times to ask her to force her daughter to give up her activities, using the carrot (the offer of the necessary operation) and the stick (threat of prosecution. daughter’s activities).
“This control is in all aspects of life,” he said. “The exiles who start criticizing realize that if they do, they may not be able to return, and this is the cost.
“How are you going to get medicine for your family? It’s a real dilemma, the most important because it’s like having your family hostage.”
As a country that produces and exports little, Cuba relies heavily on foreign currency from international tourists, as well as remittances sent by Cubans living and working abroad.
His government is struggling financially after three years of a pandemic that has reduced visitor numbers. It also experienced a drop in shipments after the Trump administration tightened the US embargo on the country and closed Western Union offices on the island. Agricultural production has been declining for years, which has led to the need to import more food.
Tourists are now back and Western Union offices have reopened, but the island remains in crisis, with food shortages and frequent deaths.
The Canadian dollar is critical for the Cuban government
Some Cuban-Canadians believe they are under more pressure from the Cuban government because they are nervous about a campaign by activists here to persuade Canadians to stop traveling to the country and stay in hotels and resorts owned by the Cuban government and armed forces.
The first two months of 2023 saw more than a quarter of a million Canadians enter Cuba, five times more than Cubans themselves, and more than ten times more than the largest group of foreigners, US citizens.
Any significant decline in Canadian tourism could threaten the Cuban Communist Party’s ability to pay its bills and maintain one-party rule.
Glenda Corella Cespedes said that, despite the order banning her from her country, she does not want to remain silent and continues to post her views on the situation in Cuba on social media.
He said he does not expect to return as long as one-party rule continues on the island, as it has for the past 63 years.
“I feel sorry for my mother, I feel sorry for my father, my sister, my brother, my brother, my friends, everyone,” he said.
“But there’s no way I’m going back.”
[ad_2]
Source link