2017-04-20 01:58
[View the story "A bloody day as Venezuelans take to the streets to demand end of dictatorship #19A" on Storify] Read More
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Uncommon Sense Blog
marcmasferrer.typepad.com
Commentaries on politics, culture, entertainment and other issues of the day.
2017-04-02 21:08
Fidel Batista Leyva y Anairis y Adairis Miranda Leyva
Amnesty International last week called for "urgent action" on behalf of three imprisoned siblings, who their mother says are in poor hea… Read More
2017-01-07 12:10
Members of the Cuban Damas de Blanco were arrested during a demonstration in March. (AP photo)
In the post-fact world we live in, you can interpret numbers anyway you want, even when th… Read More
2016-12-07 01:47
Members of the Ladies in White Human Rights organization are arrested by Cuban police on December 10, 2015 in Havana. (ADALBERTO ROQUE/AFP/Getty Images)
Fidel Castro's death alone, as welcom… Read More
2016-12-04 23:45
Fidel Castro could always count on sympathetic, if not outright fawning coverage in the international media. It's too much to say the media created Castro, but in his more than 60 years in… Read More
2016-12-04 23:08
Eduardo Cardet, left, and Danilo "El Sexto" Maldonado
Cuban democracy activist Rosa Maria Paya says she will present to United Nations human rights officials information about the arrests of… Read More
2016-11-30 02:16
El Sexto
Amnesty International has declared Cuban artist Danilo Maldonado -- better known as El Sexto -- a prisoner of conscience after he was arrested not long after he posted on Facebook a… Read More
2016-11-27 19:57
Cubans in Miami celebrate after the death of Fidel Castro, Nov. 26, 2016. (Photo: Marc R. Masferrer)
The death of Fidel Castro, as significant as it was, does not change a thing in Cuba.
Cub… Read More
2016-11-26 11:18
The bastard is dead.
The death of Fidel Castro is the best news ever for Cuba and Cubans, whether they are on the island or in exile. Maybe, finally, real change -- that is, freedom -- will… Read More
2016-11-20 17:37
Amnesty International is sounding the alarm on behalf of Cubalex, a Cuba-based group of human rights lawyers that AI says has been subjected in recent months to increased harassment an… Read More
2016-11-20 17:09
President Barack Obama and Guillermo Farinas, in Miami in 2013. (Photo: Martinoticias.com)
Cuban human rights activist Guillermo Farinas is urging President-elect Donald Trump to halt or sus… Read More
2016-11-16 02:19
Former Cuban political prisoner Jorge Alberto Liriano Linares, who spent several years in the Castro gulag, has died, according to journalist Roberto de Jesus Guerra Perez, who reported… Read More
2016-11-16 01:58
Cubans use a Wi-Fi hot spot. (EFE photo via Martinoticias.com)
Internet freedom remains almost nonexistent in Cuba, despite "modest steps" to increase the public's access, according to a new… Read More
2016-11-16 01:16
Pope Francis and Raul Castro, during the pope's visit to Cuba in March. (Getty Images)
In response to Pope Francis' call for a show of mercy, the Castro dictatorship this week pardoned 787… Read More
2016-11-06 21:07
Sol Garcia Basulto (photo via Facebook)
Cuban independent journalist Sol García Basulto is pleading with the world to take up her cause, after the Castro secret police threa… Read More
2016-11-06 20:29
Photo via Martinoticias.
Fourteen months or so after the United States reopened its embassy in Havana, political repression in Cuba is as awful as ever. In fact, by one count, 2016, with two… Read More
2016-06-19 19:53
Rolando Reyes Rabanal
Cuban human rights activist Rolando Reyes Rabanal, who was one of 53 political prisoners released after the U.S. and Cuba re-established diplomatic relations… Read More
2016-06-19 19:29
This post will remain at the top of the page through June 25.
During President Barack Obama's visit to Cuba in March 2016, dictator Raul Castro said he would be willing to release all politi… Read More
2016-06-08 02:01
The Cuban secret police made at least 724 politically motivated arrests in May, according to the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and Reconciliation. It was the lowest monthly count since la… Read More
2016-06-05 19:48
This post will remain at the top of the page through June 11, 2016
During President Barack Obama's visit to Cuba in March 2016, dictator Raul Castro said he would be willing to release all p… Read More
2016-05-29 14:34
This post will remain at the top of the page through June 4, 2016
During President Barack Obama's visit to Cuba in March 2016, dictator Raul Castro said he would be willing to release all po… Read More
2016-05-29 14:20
Four of the most powerful voices in the Cuban opposition -- the former "black spring" prisoners of conscience Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, Jose Daniel Ferrer Garcia, Ivan Hernandez and Felix… Read More
2016-05-23 02:42
Yunet Cairo Reigad and Yaquelin Heredia Morales
As part of its overall repressive nature, the Castro dictatorship carries on a vicious war on women, especially those who dare to challeng… Read More
2016-05-21 17:52
This post will remain at the top of the page through May 28 , 2016.
During President Barack Obama's visit to Cuba in March 2016, dictator Raul Castro said he would be willing to release all… Read More
2016-05-15 10:12
This post will remain at the top of the page through May 21 , 2016.
During President Barack Obama's visit to Cuba in March 2016, dictator Raul Castro said he would be willing to release… Read More
2016-05-07 21:40
This post will remain at the top of the page through May 14 , 2016.
During President Barack Obama's visit to Cuba in March 2016, dictator Raul Castro said he would be willing to release all… Read More
2016-05-04 01:03
The Castro dictatorship made at least 5,351 politically-motivated arrests in the first four months of 2016, the non-governmental Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation… Read More
2016-05-01 19:06
This week's Uncommon Sense Cuban Political Prisoners of the Week are five activists with the Patriotic Union of Cuba, who have been in jail since their arrests last summer after peaceful pr… Read More
2016-05-01 18:55
Not willing to let Cubans demonstrating for freedom upset their May Day party, the Castro dictatorship Sunday unleashed another day of repression, moving to block Damas De Blanco and other a… Read More
2016-04-30 21:43
During President Barack Obama's visit to Cuba in March 2016, dictator Raul Castro said he would be willing to release all political prisoners; all he needed was a list of names.
Only the big… Read More
2016-04-10 19:53
South Florida-based Carnival Cruise Line has enlisted itself as an agent of the apartheid regime in Havana, accepting as a condition of voyages to Cuba the banning from its passenger l… Read More
2016-04-10 19:14
Different Sunday, same story from the Cuban streets, with the dictatorship moving to stop peaceful opposition activists from demonstrating for freedom, democracy and human rights..
[View th… Read More
2016-04-05 11:38
Barack Obama and Raul Castro. (AP photo)
Anyone wondering about what the Castro dictatorship really thinks about the re-start of relations with the United States, and the promises of hope an… Read More
2016-03-27 20:24
If you thought the influx into Cuba of Barack Obama, Mick Jagger and other opportunists into Cuba this past week meant political repression on the island had become a thing of the past, you'… Read More
2016-03-20 23:27
I will leave it to the CNNs and the New York Timeses to report on the "historic" nature of President Obama's dalliance in Cuba -- a few hours in, some of it already is hysterical.
Inste… Read More
2016-03-05 22:05
A Cuban police officer arrests a member of the Damas de Blanco, or "Ladies In White."
The Cuba President Barack Obama will visit this month has in 2016 suffered some of the most brutal repre… Read More
2016-02-28 22:09
[View the story "Another Sunday of repression in Cuba, 2/28/16" on Storify] Read More
2016-02-22 01:25
Via Twitter, former Cuban prisoner of conscience Ivan Hernandez Carillo reports from other the island that the Castro dictatorship has announced that seven of the 11 former Group of 75… Read More
2016-02-22 00:44
Different Sunday, same repression in Cuba.
Don't expect it to stop just because President Barack Obama is going to Havana. (Yes, the latest arrests come about 48 hours after Obama announced… Read More
2016-02-14 23:14
Repression in Cuba never takes a holiday, even on a day that celebrates love like St. Valentine's Day.
[View the story "From Castro with hate: More than 130 Cuban activists arrested on Val… Read More
2016-02-07 19:10
Another Sunday of repression in Cuba, the 40th Sunday Cubans have taken to the streets to demand their rights and their freedom.
[View the story "Another Sunday of repression in Cuba, Feb… Read More
2016-02-05 23:36
Cuban independent journalist Lazaro Yuri Valle is arrested in Havana on Dec. 10. 2015. (EFE photo via Martinoticias.com)
Even if you believe and/or trust President Barack Obama's assurances… Read More
2016-01-30 21:54
This happens every day across Cuba.
From 14ymedio via Translating Cuba:
Carlos Oliva Rivery from UNPACU (Twitter)
14ymedio, Havana, 29 January 2016 — The houses of Alexeis Mart&iacut&hell…Read More
2016-01-30 21:38
In an interview posted on YouTube, and just days after his release, former Cuban political prisoner Hugo Damien Prieto vows to continue as part of the struggle for freedom in Cuba, "until th… Read More
2016-01-30 21:25
"Economic reform" in Cuba doesn't mean anything if it doesn't allow the people to eat what they want.
When Cuban police raided food vendors doing business free of the normal controls, t… Read More
2016-01-30 21:17
More than a year after the United States and Cuba normalized relations, with promises from President Barack Obama that American appeasement would bring democratic change and respect for hum… Read More
2016-01-22 17:36
Hugo Damian Prieto and his wife, a few hours after being released. (Angel Moya)
Via Translating Cuba, 14YMedio has the story:
14ymedio, Havana, 21 January 2016 – Released on Wednesda… Read More
2016-01-21 10:58
With many in the U.S. Congress eager to do business with the gangsters in Havana, it is worth recognizing those of their colleagues who recognize the nature of the Castro regime and its bad… Read More
2016-01-11 17:37
Despite promises from Washington that normalized relations with Havana would bring change to Cuba, the level of political repression -- in any realistic assessment, the only way to gauge the… Read More
2016-01-11 17:32
One of the Castro dictatorship's favorite repressive tactics is the "act of repudiation," in which the police or other communist thugs rally a mob -- often including students and the el… Read More
2016-01-04 21:18
Vladimir Morera Bacallao
Cuban political prisoner Vladimir Morera Bacallao's hunger strike was terminated Dec. 30 when doctors began feeding him intravenously after he slipped into an incohe… Read More
2016-01-04 20:53
As measured by maybe the most important indicator -- the level of political repression -- President Barack Obama's opening to Cuba, which has been sold as a way to maybe, hopefully, eventual… Read More
2015-12-30 09:58
The U.S. State Department, as well as a Republican Cuban-American member of Congress, on Tuesday asked the Castro dictatorship to release political prisoner Vladimir Morera Caballao, wh… Read More
2015-12-26 23:44
Vladimir Morera Bacallao
The U.S. State Department this week elevated the status of Cuban political prisoner Vladimir Morera Bacallo, who has been on hunger strike for more than 75 days, whe… Read More
2015-12-05 23:51
Cuban Ladies In White and other anti-Castro activists gather in Havana park. (Photo by Angel Moya)
One year ago this month, on Dec. 17, U.S. President Barack Obama and Cuban dictator Raul Ca… Read More
2015-12-02 03:41
The past year, since Dec. 17 when President Barack Obama cut his normalization deal with the Castro dictator, have provided numerous illustrations of why the deal and Obama's promises of cha… Read More
2015-12-02 03:31
Some of the most admirable Cuban activists on the island are those who challenge the Castro dictatorship by standing up on behalf of their fellow activists held in jail by the regime. T… Read More
2015-11-29 18:37
Today in Cuba, @jangelmoya.
Today is at least the 32nd Sunday of repression of Cuba, with reports filtering from the island of dozens already being arrested, many while trying to march peace… Read More
2015-11-29 00:19
Speaking about Cuban political prisoners at Jose Marti Park, Tampa, March 7, 2010.
The past 10 years in Cuban history -- which correspond with the 10 years this blog has been in existence as… Read More
2015-11-17 11:03
Fusion.net reports on how Central America has become the preferred route for many Cubans seeking a new life the United States -- creating a new refugee crisis maybe not as dramatic as what… Read More
2015-11-15 22:43
In Havana and across the island, Cubans gathered on Sunday to pray and to demand the release of all political prisoners. As reported by various sources on the island armed with little more t… Read More
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