• CAMPAIGNS

    INSTAR actively defends the human and cultural rights that are part of its foundational principles. INSTAR has given visibility and logistical support and advice, and put its human capital to work in campaigns against the state strategies criminalizing freedom of expression, and has denounced human rights violations, including the corruption of the Cuban communications monopoly ETECSA, the imprisonment of citizens for political reasons—such as activist Silverio Portal and journalist Roberto de Jesús Quiñones—and the censorship and harassment against other cultural spaces such as the San Isidro Movement and other Cuban civil society actors.

  • I DO NOT CHOOSE DICTATORSHIPS




    On March 26, 2023, the Cuban state-party has called for a new electoral farce. In order not to support the usual circus and to dismantle the propaganda with which the Cuban political regime wants to hide the galloping inflation, the collapse of the national electrical energy system, the chronic shortage, the migratory crisis, the economic hardships, the repression and absence of basic freedoms in Cuba, from INSTAR the campaign "I do not choose dictatorships" is launched. The call is simple: not to participate, to refrain from following their game, to legitimize abstention as the alternative and the voice of a people who have been deprived of any way of expressing themselves freely.

    Campaign Date: March 2023















  • FREEDOM FOR POLITICAL PRISONERS




    Just before the call for a new electoral farce, the Cuban one-party regime has decided to increase the repression and persecution against activists inside Cuba. The habitual nature of this type of repressive practice just before events considered strategic by the PCC should not make us forget the complaint. For this reason, from INSTAR we raise our voice to demand the freedom of all those who have been imprisoned or persecuted for thinking differently and expressing it freely.

    Campaign Date: March 2023















  • CUBA FEMINICIDE STATE




    Given the growing number of femicides in Cuba, the normalization of this type of violence, the trivialization of the structural machismo of Cuban society and the inaction of the State-party in the face of these events, from INSTAR we launched the campaign: "Cuba Estado Feminicida". In this way we call attention to these serious problems, while we demand justice and reparation for the victims, as well as an end to so much impunity and complicity.

    Campaign Date: February 2023







  • DEMOCRACY?




    One of the most important aspects of the political propaganda of the Cuban State-party abroad has been to sell the current political regime in Cuba as a sui generis democracy. What is clearly a post-totalitarian political system, wants to pass itself off as a unique democracy, even misunderstood by the rest of the world. The constant violation of civil and political rights; the absence of separation of powers, constitutional and legal guarantees; the non-existence of a system of political counterweights; the constant repression of the citizens and the cancellation of any truly autonomous or free space of the state apparatus, are ignored by the aforementioned propaganda and its spokespersons in the rest of the world. From INSTAR, we are not only against this vision, but we launched this campaign to counteract the myth and lie spread for more than six decades.

    Campaign Date: January 2023










  • END OF THE YEAR 2022




    As part of our constant call for the release of all political prisoners in Cuba, from INSTAR, at the end of the year (2022-2023) we launched this campaign in remembrance of all those who suffer condemnation and persecution by the State-party. Aware that there is no better wish for the new year than the true and flat freedom of our country, we believe that this freedom necessarily requires the liberation of all those who are imprisoned because they think differently from power, as well as the recognition of the right to think differently and express it.

    Campaign Date: December 2022










  • CUBA WOMEN'S NETWORK




    The Cuban Women's Network and INSTAR joined forces in November 2022 to promote the #TenemosNombre campaign and we demand a #LeyDeGéneroYa that aims to involve society to launch a message of awareness of the need for a law that guarantees protection standards for Cuban women and demands its prompt approval.

    Campaign Date: November 2022























  • BEFORE AND AFTER




    One of the myths on which the revolution of January 1959 was based has been the myth of the unfinished revolution. With this concept, the image of a permanent revolution was built, which has been the basis of the regime's discourse and propaganda to remain in power as the only option and qualify any other political proposal as an enemy of the State. The revolution as a concept of change was blurred. The promises of social justice and renewal carried out by the revolutionary process in the early years of the sixties turned into something else, and remained precisely that, in promises. The regime has insisted that these promises have been fulfilled even if reality shows otherwise. This INSTAR campaign is aimed at deconstructing the propaganda based on that myth and calling attention to those issues that were not only left unfinished or not carried out but that have been reversed.

    Posters created by:
    Claudia Patricia Pérez Olivera

    Campaign Date: October 2022























  • AREN’T YOU ASHAMED?



    A campaign to make visible the excessive, unconstitutional sentences and the violation of due process against those detained in the anti-government demonstrations in Cuba last July 11, 2021. With the hashtag #NoTeDaVergüenza?, the campaign seeks to raise awareness by identifying and calling attention to the Cuban Tribunal Supremo Popular (Supreme People’s Court) members, judges, and prosecutors directly responsible for dispensing politically biased justice. Cuban families today suffer the incarceration of more than 800 political prisoners—including more than a dozen minors—with prosecutorial petitions and sentences of up to 30 years for peacefully exercising their universal rights to free expression and public demonstration.

    Posters created by:
    Claudia Patricia Pérez Olivera

    Campaign Date: January–February 2022




























  • NO TO THE 14TH BIENNIAL




    No to the Havana Biennial
    (in collaboration with 27N and Cuban Art Society)

    Why are we saying NO to the 14th Havana Biennial and asking you to do the same?

    To the international art community,
    We are Cubans working for culture, and we call for NO participation in the 14th Havana Biennial.
    Some will be surprised or even shocked that we reject the most important artistic event in our country, an event that has allowed so many Cuban artists to share their art with the rest of the world.

    Our reasons for doing so are simple:

    We say NO to participation in the Havana Biennial because of the injustices being committed by the Cuban government against Cuban artists and citizens who seek to exercise their constitutional rights.

    We say NO to participation in the Havana Biennial because Cuban artists have been, and others remain, in prison; because dozens of art professionals are under house arrest; more than a thousand of our fellow citizens were arrested during the mass protests that took place on July 11th. More than five hundred Cubans are still in jail for those detained in the protests, some minors.

    We say NO to participation, presence at, and support for the Havana Biennial because we have exhausted other means to continue our efforts to free our comrades.

    We have sent letters, issued petitions, expressed our anger in the press and Internet. We have made art and music in protest. We have fasted in public. We have prayed in churches. Our friends abroad have demonstrated and lobbied their politicians. The European Parliament and the United Nations have condemned the detention and harassment of Cubans who have tried to express their creativity and political will peacefully. And yet our colleagues and fellow citizens are still being detained. They continue to be harassed, deprived of access to telecommunications, under surveillance, and with their families threatened.

    The same institutions and officials are organizing the 14th Havana Biennial—those who refuse to listen to us, who have consented to and participated in the violence against artists and cultural workers for seeking greater autonomy for our culture and civil rights of citizens.
    This is no longer an isolated case of censorship but a systematic effort by the government to silence those who think differently; the lives of cultural workers are at risk.

    We hope you will join us in NOT participating, not attending, and not supporting this edition of the Havana Biennial. For endorsements or press inquiries, please write to us at no14bienal@gmail.com.

    Campaign poster created by:
    Julio Llopiz-Casal based on an idea by Lilian Dooley

    Campaign poster created by:
    Julio Llopiz Casal

    Campaign Date: November 2021-March 2022






































































































































  • ART ONLY IN FREEDOM




    Art Only in Freedom
    (in collaboration with 27N and Cuban Art Society)

    A large number of Cuban artists, whose work is part of the collection of the National Museum of Fine Arts, united to sign a letter to the director of that institution, against the arbitrary detention of artivist Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara at a hospital, following his second hunger strike in protest against the illegal raid on his home and the destruction of his works of art at the hands of the Department of State Security. The gesture consisted of the manifest will of the artists to withdraw their works from the museum’s exhibition, as long as the repressive wave against creators uncomfortable for the government continues.



    Open letter to Jorge Fernandez Torres, Director of the National Museum of Fine Arts of Cuba.

    La Havana, May 24, 2021

    Dear Jorge Fernández:

    We are writing to you motivated by genuine feelings of concern and solidarity with our young Cuban artist and colleague Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara. Since May 2nd he has been kidnapped and held incommunicado by State Security at the Calixto Garcia Surgical Clinical University Hospital. Otero Alcántara was taken from his home against his will, while he was on a peaceful hunger and thirst strike with which he was making demands that so far have not been met: the return of his works illegally seized by state agents on April 16th, compensation for damaged or destroyed works, cessation of the police surveillance to which he has been subjected since November 2020, and the guarantee of free artistic exercise.

    The imprisonment in which Otero is being held is illegal; the response to his habeas corpus this May 5th states: “Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is neither detained nor prosecuted.” This is not an isolated fact; in the last few weeks, the levels of repression against other artists and civil society, in general, have increased, and they have been subjected to police harassment, arbitrary arrests and criminal proceedings, desecration of their reputations in the public media, illegal confinement in their own homes, interruption of communication through cell phones, etc.

    As is well known, last November 27th, more than 300 artists, filmmakers, writers, journalists, and intellectuals gathered in front of the Ministry of Culture to demand freedom of expression, an end to repression and for civil rights in general, through dialogue and understanding with the cultural authorities. However, the proposal for dialogue was rejected, and State repression of artists and civil society has increased considerably since that date.

    The situation of incommunicado detention in which Luis Manuel has been for more than three weeks, hospitalized against his will, without access to a telephone or visits from family, friends, and colleagues, worries and alarms us. We also express a legitimate concern about the treatment he may be being subjected to in this institution since his physical condition has deteriorated markedly, as seen in several videos leaked on social networks and national television, clearly violating his right to privacy and confidentiality of his medical records.

    Therefore, we the undersigned artists, address you, in your capacity as director of the National Museum of Fine Arts, a public institution subordinated to the Ministry of Culture and the Council of State, to demand the following:

    By the right recognized in Article 4, Subparagraph c) of Law no. 14/1977 Ley del Derecho de Autor (Copyright Law) to “Perform or authorize the publication, reproduction or communication of his work to the public by any lawful means, under his name, under a pseudonym or anonymously,” we demand that these works of our authorship, which are currently exhibited in the permanent and temporary exhibition halls of the National Museum of Fine Arts, be covered in such a way as to prevent their “communication” to the public, and that those works that are not exhibited but belong to the collection be removed from the Museum’s web page, until the following demands are met:

    1. Immediate release of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and safe transfer to his permanent residence at 955 Damas St., San Isidro, Old Havana.

    2. Guarantee access to his relatives, friends, and colleagues to his residence to verify his physical and mental state of health.

    3. Elimination of the police siege he has been under since November 2020.

    Awaiting your response,

    Tania Bruguera
    Sandra Ceballos
    Tomás Sánchez
    César Leal
    Jorge Luis Marrero
    Sandra Ramos
    Fernando Rodríguez
    Consuelo Castañeda
    Douglas Arguelles
    Ibrahim Miranda
    Carlos A. García de la Nuez
    Marco Castillo
    Celia González
    Reynier Leyva Novo
    Cirenaica Moreira
    Juan Pablo Ballester
    Jorge Wellesley
    Javier Castro
    Yunior Aguiar
    Carlos Garaicoa
    Alberto Jorge Carol
    Gustavo Acosta
    Ana Albertina Delgado Álvarez
    Amelia Pelaez Foundation


    Posters created by:
    Claudia Patricia Pérez Olivera

    Campaign Date: May 2021
























































































  • THIS IS NOT A PERFORMANCE




    ENEUP is a real-time campaign against the repression unleashed, after the second hunger strike of artivist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, against activists who showed solidarity and tried to circumvent the police siege so that no one would approach the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement in Old Havana.

    The posters were made with photos, videos, posts that appeared on social networks, and photos sent to us by various means. Each piece of information was journalistically contrasted. Each poster was posted with its story under the hashtag #EstoNoEsUnPerformance.

    It is our intention that this campaign not stop as long as there is repression in Cuba. We want citizens to denounce police abuses. For this purpose, we provide you with the template. You may also write to us at comunicacion@instar.org, with your photo and a brief explanation and a quick way to contact you.

    Posters created by:
    Claudia Patricia Pérez Olivera

    Campaign Date: April 2021
























































































  • RESIGNATION NOW!




    Due to the increasing harassment of the State towards citizen initiatives that advocate for the democratization of the country, and following the violent intervention of state security military forces at the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement, where 15 citizens and activists were on strike in protest against the repression and arbitrary imprisonment of Cuban rapper Denís Solís, a public protest took place in front of the Ministry of Culture on November 27, 2020.

    This event marked a turning point in the commitment of the community of Cuban artists and intellectuals not only against cultural rights violations but also against the absence of social, civil, and political rights that stifles citizen participation, leaving it at the mercy of a repressive military mechanism that acts with impunity. In this process, which continues today, the members of INSTAR’s team, who are also creators, and the Institute, as a platform representing and legitimizing civil resistance from cultural autonomy, have been a vital part of this process. Currently, INSTAR actively collaborates with the citizen platform 27N.

    On January 27, 2021, a group of artivists and journalists gathered again in front of the Cuban Ministry of Culture to demand the lifting of the arbitrary measures against some of the 27N artivists and the San Isidro Movement. The current Minister of Culture Alpidio Alonso Grau showed his face for the first time. However, his reaction was to slap a journalist filming the meeting.

    Thus, this campaign was created on social media to ask the National Assembly for the resignation of the Minister of Culture.

    Posters created by:
    Claudia Patricia Pérez Olivera

    Campaign Date: January–March 2021











  • CHOIR OF VOICES




    The platform Libertad Cuba Lab and the artivist Tania Bruguera have united hundreds of people in a choir with the following invitation: “Let’s raise our voices for those who are silenced. Our voices together are a collective plea for justice and freedom. Every time we pronounce their names, we keep them away from death.”

    Posters created by:
    Lien Carrazana

    Campaign Date: August 2020












  • FREE JORGE ENRIQUE RODRIGUEZ




    In Cuba, there is no legal recognition of independent journalistic activity. Investigation generated outside the partisan press is persecuted and harassed. Jorge Enrique Rodríguez, journalist, writer, and a member of the INSTAR team, was arbitrarily detained in June 2020 while doing a report. In violation of due process (contact with family members, official notification of the possible case, and access to a lawyer), he was tried for contempt of authority, covering the case of Hansel Hernández (a young Afro-descendant murdered by the national police), broadcasting false news, and promoting a demonstration on Tuesday, June 30th. These are illegitimate charges that the system often implements through a precarious and corrupt legal process to incriminate and prosecute intellectuals and activists to silence them.

    Through a massive media campaign and a legal debate, INSTAR managed to push for his release six days after his detention, without legal charges.

    Posters created by:
    Claudia Patricia Pérez Olivera

    Campaign Date: June 2020













  • FREE LUIS MANUEL OTERO ALCÁNTARA




    Artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara was imprisoned in April 2020, under alleged charges of property damage, contempt, and desecrating patriotic symbols, for using the Cuban flag in one of his pieces. During the last few years, Luis Manuel and the San Isidro Movement, which he leads, have been the object of constant defamation, harassment, and repression by the Cuban political police.

    The campaign for the liberation of Luis Manuel, of which the INSTAR team was a fundamental part, and which resulted in his release 12 days after his imprisonment, stirred a large-scale ethical, aesthetic and political discussion that revitalized the spirit of protest against injustice, the will to reaffirm, communion and defense of the rights of the artistic community and Cuban civil society.

    In an unprecedented event, this campaign was joined not only by artists and intellectuals who traditionally support free art but also by pro-government artists such as troubadour Silvio Rodríguez.

    Posters created by:
    Claudia Patricia Pérez Olivera

    Campaign Date: March 2020