Free Gorki: State Security arrests Cuban musician on 21st anniversary of Cuban uprising

"They violate all your rights one after another: the right to march peacefully, to freedom of expression, right to travel, arbitrary arrest. It is incredible all that they do in just one arrest." -
Gorki Aguila, following his release on August 5, 2015



Today marks 21 years since the August 5, 1994 uprising in Cuba that became known as "El Maleconazo." At around 12 noon today, August 5, 2015, Cuban punk rock musician Gorki Aguila was taken from his home by the police. Gorki has spent time in prison in Cuba for his songs dissenting with the dictatorship and been threatened with another political show trial on more than one occasion. He has also stood in solidarity with imprisoned Cuban artists such as El Sexto and with Cuba's Ladies in White.


Three years ago he wrote a song in memory of the August 5th freedom uprising that is embedded above. Cuba is a totalitarian police state without an independent judiciary. The best way to help Gorki is to make his plight known as quickly as possible. Back in early 2014 when facing another miscarriage of justice he spoke out and with international solidarity was able to remain in freedom. Reproduced below is his call for solidarity. in February of 2014 that remains relevant now:

Hello, my name is Gorki Águila I’m the leader of the band Porno para Ricardo, I’m an artist and I’m a musician. And I’m here to denounce this new crime that the government of the Castros would like to do to me.

I’m an opponent to this unjust regime. Now the new thing that they want to do with me is a summary trial. Something that is a tremendous injustice. I don’t know if you know this but summary trials have always been held in totalitarian governments. They are characterized, among other things, by not giving access to the defense to the case files of the prosecution. 

This means that the defense will not be able to prepare itself correctly and that they will be able to do with you whatever they want.

This is why I am appealing to solidarity from all of you so that you will help us once more with this new crime by the Cuban government, before this new injustice, to unite and make this visible in the media. 

To denounce it and to use it to support also other persons, who like me, are engaged in resistance to this regime.

I’m very grateful for the support. And I’m an optimistic guy and I believe that we will succeed if we join together before this situation.

Update: The good news is that Gorki was freed around 4:00pm and that international press picked up the story of his detention the same day. The bad news is that he has been threatened by Cuban officials that if he continues to support the Ladies in White on Sundays and attend opposition meetings at Gandhi Park he will no longer be allowed to travel outside of Cuba.

María Elena Cruz Varela presents her self titled book at Cafe Demetrio

A Courageous Cuban poet and intellectual takes a look back

María Elena Cruz Varela

Friday night, February 7, 2014 friends and admirers gather in the courtyard of Cafe Demetrio in Coral Gables, Florida to listen to the poetry and reflections of María Elena Cruz Varela twenty years after being exiled. She has not been able to return to Cuba and was unable to see her father before he passed. Below are excerpts from her presentation that evening which includes a powerful poem dedicated to her dad.



Its a long way from her days of being subjected to a bloody act of repudiation and years in prison for refusing to be submissive and live in the lie that Fidel Castro was the daddy and 11 million Cubans the children who must obey.  Mairym Cruz-Bernal in a July 1, 1995 essay published in The American Poetry Review wrote about her encounter with the poet:

Maria Elena described to me how, made to kneel in the street, she had clenched her teeth and refused to open her mouth until she could taste her own blood, could see it flow on the ground before her. But as her accusers cursed and beat her she remained silent. Six days after her arrest, a closed trial was held, the official charges against her, "illegal association and libel."

Maria Elena's accounts of the arrest blurred with stories of her subsequent imprisonment, blurred with her cellmates' stories, some of which would later find their way into her poems, and some that would not - among them a fellow inmate's dispassionate report to Maria Elena that she had strangled her newborn because she couldn't stand the sound of the crying. Maria Elena recalled her own fourteen year old son's first visit to see her. Soon I would learn from the poet's family that our initial meeting marked the first time Maria Elena had spoken to anyone of her two years in prison. As yet stranger to her, I had become the person through whom she could, as she later described it, exorcise the demons of her memory.

 On Tuesday, February 11, 2014 a different kind of poet, a punk rocker and musician, Gorki Águila will be subjected to a summary show trial. Twenty years have passed but the underlying nature of the dictatorship has not changed nor has the courage of some Cubans to defy it. Please take a moment and sign the petition for his freedom.

#FREEGORKI El Himno No-Violento de Porno para Ricardo

"Versión del tema del cantautor Catalán Luis Ilach que en los años 80 fue convertido en himno por la resistencia Polaca contra el comunismo." - Porno para Ricardo



Porno para Ricardo re-interpretan La Estaca y convierten la canción de Luis Ilach en un himno a la lucha no-violenta.

PORNO PARA RICARDO: LA ESTACA

Compositor: Lluis Llach, Ciro Diaz Penedo

Letra -

El viejo Félix me hablaba
Con el alba en el portal
Mientras esperábamos el sol
Viendo los tanques pasar

Dice que no ves la estaca
A la que atan nuestros pies
Si no podemos soltarnos
Nunca podremos correr

Si la empujamos caerá
Es que no puede durar mas
Seguro cae, cae, cae
Porque bien podrida está

Si tu la empujas por aquí
Y yo la empujo por allá
Claro que cae, cae, cae
Y nos podremos librar

Pero ha pasado algún tiempo ya
Mis manos están sangrando
Cuando abandono un instante
Se hace mas gruesa y mas grande
Ya bien se que esta podrida
Pero aun así pesa tanto
Que a veces las fuerzas se me van
Canta esta canción mas alto.

Si la empujamos caerá.
Es que no puede durar mas.
Claro que cae, cae, cae,
porque bien podrida esta.

Y yo la empujo por aquí,
Tu empujas fuerte por alla,
claro que cae, cae, cae,
y nos podremos librar.

El viejo Félix no me habla ya
Mal viento se lo llevó
El sabe a donde mientras que yo
Sigo aquí esperando el sol
Y cuando veo pasar
A los muchachos de hoy
Alzo mi voz y vuelvo a cantar
La canción que el me enseñó.
Si la empujamos caerá.
Es que no puede durar mas.
Seguro cae, cae, cae,
porque bien podrida esta.

Si yo empujo por aquí,
Tu empujas fuerte por alla,
claro que cae, cae, cae, 
claro que cae, cae, cae,
 claro que cae, cae, cae,
 claro que cae, cae, cae,
 claro que cae, cae, cae,
 Ya! Ya! Ya!

#FreeGorki: Let a Free Man be a Free Man

“Freedom of mind is the real freedom. A person whose mind is not free though he may not be in chains, is a slave, not a free man. One whose mind is not free, though he may not be in prison, is a prisoner and not a free man. One whose mind is not free though alive, is no better than dead. Freedom of mind is the proof of one's existence.” - Bhimrao Ramji Ambedkar

Poster by Rolando Pulido

Gorki Águila is an extremely dangerous man for the dictatorship in Cuba. He is dangerous not for what he has done but for who he is: a free man who has overcome his fears to live the life of a free man in the totalitarian environment that is Cuba. He is exercising what the Czech dissident and playwrite Vaclav Havel described as the power of the powerless and that is to live in truth. In Cuba, as in any other totalitarian dictatorship that has been in power for a long time, what people say and do publicly, for the most part, has nothing to do with what they really believe. Gorki and the other members of Porno para Ricardo have broken that pattern and are saying and singing what they actually think.  Despite the repression and terror visited on them, they are free men.

Gorki faces a ten year prison term in a summary show trial organized by the Castro regime that is reminiscent of the trials organized by Stalin in the 1930s. The verdict is known beforehand and what happens inside the courtroom will make no impact. However, what happens outside of the court room does matter and can be the difference for Gorki of ten years in prison or freedom.  This is why he has made a call to all people of good will to demonstrate their solidarity. What he asking for is what the Czech philosopher, Jan Patočka, called the solidarity of the shaken.



At the same time the apologists of the dictatorship are mounting a campaign to smear and slander his name. They've gone as far to dispute that he is a musician. For that reason the following playlist featuring Gorki over the past decade is a public defense exhibit in the public trial of this artist and musician.

Gorki (wearing t-shirt calling for Biscet's freedom) with friends in Havana, Cuba

FCF members met Gorki in the past and found him to be a thoughtful and funny character who takes the issue of human rights seriously. When we were campaigning for the release of Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet he accepted one of the t-shirts we were distributing and took it back to Cuba with him and wore it there. A free man living in totalitarian Cuba.

FCF is now in the middle of "Gandhi King Payá Season for Nonviolence: January 30 - July 22" and this effort falls within the 174 days of nonviolence spanning the day Gandhi was killed and the day Payá was killed. We seek positive nonviolent means to effect positive change.

Therefore in that spirit, FCF joins in calling all people of goodwill to use the hashtag #FreeGorki wherever you can, join https://www.facebook.com/groups/FreeGorki/ the facebook group urging his release, to sign the petition calling for Gorki's release, joining in the twitterthon on the morning of his show trial and finally for you to innovate and come up with nonviolent solutions to call for his freedom and personal safety.

Lets take action and see to it that a free man in Cuba remain free to think and say what he wants!

#FREEGORKI: Cuban Artist Facing Politically Motivated Prosecution Asks for Solidarity

Free Gorki: Needs your solidarity to avoid 10 year prison sentence

A Cuban artist is being subjected to a summary trial because his music is politically charged and highly critical of the government. His name is Gorki Águila. He is a punk rocker, who in the Punk tradition, sings out in defiance of the prevailing power structure. Below is his appeal for solidarity and help. Without you he is facing 10 years in prison. The summary trial is scheduled for February 11, 2014 8:30am at municipal tribunal in Marianao in Havana, Cuba. There is already a petition circulating calling for his freedom. Below is his appeal followed by a translated transcript.

Hello, my name is Gorki Águila I’m the leader of the band Porno para Ricardo, I’m an artist and I’m a musician. And I’m here to denounce this new crime that the government of the Castros would like to do to me.

I’m an opponent to this unjust regime. Now the new thing that they want to do with me is a summary trial. Something that is a tremendous injustice. I don’t know if you know this but summary trials have always been held in totalitarian governments. They are characterized, among other things, by not giving access to the defense to the case files of the prosecution. 

This means that the defense will not be able to prepare itself correctly and that they will be able to do with you whatever they want.

This is why I am appealing to solidarity from all of you so that you will help us once more with this new crime by the Cuban government, before this new injustice, to unite and make this visible in the media. 

To denounce it and to use it to support also other persons, who like me, are engaged in resistance to this regime.

I’m very grateful for the support. And I’m an optimistic guy and I believe that we will succeed if we join together before this situation.

This is not the Cuba of the travelogues and what is highlighted in the mainstream media.  Dissident leaders have been killed under suspicious circumstances. Death threats against human rights defenders and physical beatings are a common practice by the Cuban government. There are new prisoners of conscience in Cuba being recognized by Amnesty International. Women are being regularly assaulted by government agents to stop them from engaging in peaceful protests or assemblies. Human Rights Watch and the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights has reported and documented that fair trials are non-existent in Cuba. The case of a Spanish national subjected to a trial in Cuba over the Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas affair was straight out of the Stalin show trials of the 1930s. Patterns of repression remain the same or have worsened.

The only protection this musician has is your solidarity. Please sigh the petition and spread the word.