Documentary captures surveillance, harassment of Cuban journalist

The idiosyncratic and achy world of beingness nether surveillance is documented successful an intimate caller movie that follows an autarkic Cuban journalist's formation into exile.

After pugnacious questioning by Cuban police, Abraham Jimenez Enoa relates his ordeal connected camera.

He recalls being forced to portion and being handcuffed successful a country by 5 men, and the nausea aft being forced into a car and driven around.

Enoa, who was penning columns for The Washington Post from Cuba, said agents accused him of being a CIA agent.

"They said if I published different nonfiction successful The Washington Post they were going to destruct my family," helium said.

The interrogation is conscionable 1 of respective harrowing accounts successful a hard-hitting documentary filmed secretly by Enoa and his woman Claudia Calvino arsenic they struggled to header with constabulary surveillance and becoming parents for the archetypal time.

The young household went into exile successful Spain successful 2022 aft Enoa said authorities gave him an ultimatum: permission oregon helium would beryllium jailed.

"Isla Familia," which volition beryllium shown astatine the Doc New York City movie festival betwixt November and December, lifts the lid connected the regular pressures faced by autarkic journalists nether the Cuban communist government.

"We conscionable wanted to subordinate our story. I had nary pretensions to marque a documentary astir beingness arsenic an autarkic journalist," Enoa told VOA. "But often the communicative of absorption activists oregon journalists is not told this way."

Calvino, a movie producer, said the documentary was a mode for the mates to transmission their feelings portion nether surveillance.

"There was a necessity to transmission our emotions much than to springiness a message. We were conscionable a household surviving successful a location astatine the time," she told VOA.

Filmed mostly successful Cuba earlier Enoa was forced into exile, the documentary provides an intimate representation of the restricted beingness helium led with his woman and their young son, who is present 4, successful a cramped level successful Havana.

Harassment successful Havana

When Enoa was a child, Cuba's revolutionary leaders loomed ample successful his life. His gramps was a bodyguard to Fidel Castro and Che Guevara.

In the documentary, helium shows the spectator astir his grandparents' home, which is filled with photographs of Castro and Guevara.

But a vocation successful journalism forced Enoa to permission down his revolutionary household — and roots. In 2016, Enoa founded an autarkic magazine, El Estornudo (The Sneeze).

The harassment Enoa faced successful Havana grew erstwhile Enoa took a caller relation arsenic a columnist for The Washington Post.

In the documentary, Enoa points retired the concealed constabulary extracurricular his level who ticker his household daily.

He records erstwhile immense protests commencement successful 2021 against nutrient and medicine shortages, reporting firsthand connected the demonstrators.

He swaps tense messages with his wife, who worries successful lawsuit helium is arrested.

Initially helium is denied a passport, arsenic helium is connected a database of radical nether surveillance by the Cuban authorities. It proves to beryllium a pivotal moment.

"I knew this was going to happen, but wherefore does this get to maine truthful much? I don't privation to beryllium successful this state anymore," Enoa says connected camera successful the documentary.

In effect to those protests, Cuba passed a societal connection law.

It is the archetypal instrumentality to people online media, and it gives the authorities the powerfulness to restrict contented that is utilized to "propagandize successful favour of the warfare of a overseas authorities hostile to the interests of the nation."

The Cuban Institute for the Freedom of Expression and Press (ICLEP) says the caller media instrumentality is different instrumentality for the authorities to suppress the state of the media.

"This is different instrumentality of censorship which defends the involvement of the Cuban dictatorship," Normando Hernandez, ICLEP wide director, told VOA. "It is simply a instrumentality which maintains the illegality of the autarkic media and criminalizes the state of the property which is not nether authorities control."

VOA contacted the Cuban Embassy successful Madrid and the government's International Press Center successful Havana for a effect astir the findings by ICLEP. No 1 responded to either petition for comment.

The terms of exile

Legal threats and surveillance thrust galore Cubans into exile.

But arsenic the movie "Isla Familia" shows, transitioning to unrecorded successful a escaped state with a young household tin beryllium a taste shock.

Negotiating the Barcelona metro appears scary. "How heavy is it?" asks Enoa.

Exile carries a outgo arsenic helium tries to talk to relatives backmost location connected faltering telephone lines and cannot nonstop condolences erstwhile his grandma dies.

His woman tin instrumentality to Cuba with their son, but Enoa is, successful effect, barred.

When Calvino does get successful Cuba to spot household during a impermanent visit, she sees her husband's look connected television, wherever helium is erstwhile again accused of moving for the United States.

Left backmost successful Spain, it is hard for Enoa being distant from his family.

"That was the astir hard infinitesimal of my beingness — erstwhile I realized the value of family, and without my woman and my son, I was each connected my own," Enoa told VOA.

Enoa and Calvino person been granted Spanish citizenship and are gathering a beingness successful Spain. But the writer knows helium cannot instrumentality location due to the fact that of the hazard of arrest.

"Of people I miss it terribly," helium said.