Gorki Águila was Detained for 5 Hours on his Return from Buenos Aires

The leader of the Cuban punk rock band was detained for five hours at Cuban customs when he returned from Argentina. His copies of the last two editions of the Diálogo Latino Cubano.

Early in the morning of February 28th, three musicians from the band "Porno Para Ricardo" left for Ezeiza International Airport in Buenos Aires for a connecting flight in Lima and, from there, they went on to land in Havana. Upon arrival at the José Martí Airport, Gorki Águila was detained for five hours while the Cuban police searched his luggage and confiscated seven publications from CADAL, numbers 19 and 20 of the Diálogo Latino Cubano.

In light of these events, the Director General of CADAL, Gabriel Salvia, expressed solidarity with Gorki Águila. He remarked that, "the fear that the Cuban military dictatorship has maintained over the freedom of information and the free circulation of ideas is a clear indicator of its undemocratic nature and it only remains in power because of repression and international complicity."

Salvia added that, "the representatives of governments and democratic organizations should feel a sense of embarrassment by the results of the conversations they hold with the single-party regime of Cuba. These dialogues haven’t even managed to end these type of arbitrary searches that occur in Cuba."

The Cuban punk rock band "Porno Para Ricardo" was founded in 1998 and is one of the main cultural outlets of the dissatisfaction felt by some youth

groups within Cuba towards the socialist state. During their stay in Buenos Aires from February 10th to the 28th, the musicians recorded a CD for their "20 years of ideological diversionism" and conducted interviews with the press.