Jailed Cuban punk rocker to stand trial

[Bacchus39]

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20080827/ap_on_re_la_am_ca/cuba_rocker_jailed;_ylt=Amf0XLr8pNPD0SEd6SVbrpO3IxIF

Jailed Cuban punk rocker to stand trial Friday By WILL WEISSERT, Associated Press Writer


HAVANA - Cuba has ordered jailed punk rocker Gorki Aguila, an outspoken critic of Fidel Castro and the communist government, to stand trail on Friday for "social dangerousness," a charge that could carry up to four years in prison.

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Authorities arrested the 39-year-old lead singer of the band Porno para Ricardo at his Havana home on Monday as he was working on a new album. Cuban law defines "social dangerousness" as behavior contrary to "communist morality," and authorities use the charge to detain offenders before they have a chance to commit a crime.

Performing songs with angry lyrics that poke fun at or openly insult Fidel Castro and his brother Raul, who became Cuba's president in February, Porno para Ricardo was banned from official Cuban airwaves, but has continued to hold concerts behind closed doors.

The government often applies the charge of "social dangerousness" in cases of public drunkenness or as a way to keep large groups of unemployed Cubans — or those simply skipping work — from congregating on city streets during business hours. It is also applied to cases of drug addiction and "anti-social behavior."

Aguila's arrest touched off an avalanche of criticism on blogs in Cuba and the United States. Musicians on and off the island also sent e-mails decrying the case.

Elizardo Sanchez, head of the independent Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation, released a statement Wednesday calling for the trial to be held in public. He said Aguila has asked "diplomatic observers" to attend, apparently hoping they will be allowed to get a glimpse of a legal system seldom seen by foreigners in this closed society.

Sanchez's statement said that after investigating, the commission determined that "Gorki Aguila has not committed any specific crime as defined by the current criminal code."

Speaking by telephone, Sanchez said that though Aguila remained in custody, he had spoken briefly to his father, Luis.

The Cuban government has not commented.

Funded by international organizations, Sanchez's commission is the leading authority on political prisoners being held in Cuba. It is not recognized by the government.

Aguila was arrested and sentenced to several years in prison in 2005 on drug charges, which he denied, saying Cuban authorities entrapped him. His band accused the government at the time of trying to keep Porno para Ricardo from appearing in Habana Blues, a 2005 documentary about a flourishing underground music movement on the island.

[Vogon_Glory]

1. And He's Not Alone

Gorki Aguila is not the only Cuban musician who has been persecuted by the Havana regime in recent years. I met members of a Cuban hip-hop band at last year's Pastors for Peace fundraiser here in central Texas who were forced to leave because the Cuban authorities didn't approve of what they were playing.

Unlike certain DU'ers, I balk at describing the Havana regime as a "democracy." A true democracy ALSO guarantees rights to free speech, freedom of association, and the right to freely oppose government policies within the limits of civil society. And in those areas, the Havana regime comes up well short of that definition.

Liberty remains under assault here in the Americas, not just from the paramilitary goon squads of Colombia, the drug cartels of Mexico, and the murderers and torturers from Central American security services still at large since the end of the civil wars there, but also from left-wing regimes who tout their opposition to "Yankee imperialism."

"Democracy" without liberty is just as much of a cheapened, shoddy fraud as the Radical Right's fraudulent presentation of the "American Dream" as only being a house in the suburbs with a picket fence and a two-car garage.

[Bacchus39]

2. I hereby declare you socially dangerous for violating all standards

of communist morality.

[Vogon_Glory]

4. Yo soy culpable n/t

[Texano78704]

3. Maybe that's why we have a republic?

I would not call Cuba a democracy any more than I accept that the US Democratic Party are bunch of socialists.

Pejoratives aside, how would someone in a western democracy analyze this musician's actions from the communist point of view?

[Billy Burnett]

6. Then I hope you're fighting hard to establish democracy in the US first. Cubans can handle Cuba.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yO4X2Yy0oPs

[struggle4progress]

5. Dissident Cuban rocker fined $28, freed

By WILL WEISSERT – 6 minutes ago

HAVANA (AP) — A Cuban punk rocker known for his raunchy lyrics criticizing Fidel Castro was convicted of public disorder Friday ... Following a two-hour trial, the court ordered Gorki Aguila to pay 600 pesos (US$28) and released the 39-year-old singer ... Aguila was previously arrested in 2005 on drug charges ... http://ap.google.com/article/ALeqM5hRhnwx_62xjZB-8h-kq9fYmuCNfQD92SAPG80

[AlphaCentauri]

7. OMG, Cuba haters will start eating their own words

[Billy Burnett]

8. No they won't.

Loud punk bands NEVER get fined if they are living in freedom. ONLY in dictatorships do loud punk bands get fines.

The Cuba haters are the DU Cuba experts (although they've never been to Cuba and know very little about it, they have stayed in a Holiday Inn). :dunce: :dunce:

[AlphaCentauri]

9. "Loud punk bands NEVER get fined" Ask them if they have pay their taxes

they don't need to be fined, they have, without their knowledge


:rofl:

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