J'accuse by Yoani Sánchez

March 11, 2010

Translated from Penultimos Días, "Una denuncia de Yoani Sánchez." 

With a brief snippet at the end from Sánchez's latest post.

"Today on Twitter Yoani Sánchez tells us that she has presented a formal complaint to a number of Cuban official institutions denouncing the illegal detention and mistreatment she and her sister received on February 24 when they attempted to attend the funeral and sign the book of condolences at the burial of Orlando Zapata Tamayo.

"Until now, Sánchez had not called attention to her illegal arrest and mistreatment. I understand her reticience: at that time the focus needed to be on expressing grief for Zapata's passing with all media coverage necessarily concentrated on his lamentable death.

"But now there is an official complaint, which should also be presented to international institutions that monitor the human rights situation in Cuba.

"And along with the complaint, Sánchez provided proof.

"Before they were taken into custody Sánchez and her sister had their cellphones confiscated.  However, the police did not realize that she had intentionally left her phone on in order to record the entire illegal arrest, the beatings, their confinement, and the later conversations among the guards. 

"All this was there on the chip when their cellphones were returned to them and the testimony is revealing. 

"It not only gives us a window into the political motivation of the police crackdown on dissidents, journalists, and bloggers between February 23 and 25, but it also contains the names of many of the officials in charge of the operation. 

"We await Sánchez's release of the recording very soon."

And here is Sánchez's oblique hint about the recording at the end of her latest post, "Glass House."

"...Unfortunately for the crude producers of this kind of reality show, the technology in the hands of citizens has started to make the walls around their lives transparent as well. Having been so long observed, we now see that there is hole we can look through to the other side of the fence."