“A Cuban court has sentenced two artists critical of the communist state to … prison,” Raw Story reported on Saturday, June 25, 2022 (read story here).
“Rapper Maykel Castillo, 39,… was sentenced to nine years, while 34-year-old performance artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara was given five years in prison, the attorney general’s office said on Friday.”
Their crimes?
“Alcantara was arrested on July 11 last year … [during] unprecedented protests against the government. … Hundreds of people who took part in the July rallies, many chanting ‘Freedom!’ and ‘We are hungry,’ have been prosecuted and given sentences of up to 25 years.” Castillo “has been in prison over a year, charged for participating in another, smaller protest in Havana.”
The thin-skinned dictators who run Cuba can’t stomach criticism of their communist economic miracle.
Meanwhile, in nearby Florida, which is part of the United States, teachers are threatened with jail if they talk about America’s race history or the biological phenomenon of homosexuality in the classroom. Florida’s strongman, Gov. Ron DeSantis, wants GOP legislatures to appoint him president so he can do that to the other 49 states, too.