“They hit you because they fear you”: the powerful message of support from Nelson Gudín to Jorge Fernández Era

The comedian Nelson Gudín sent a message of support to his colleague Jorge Fernández Era following the incident of physical aggression and death threats he suffered at the hands of State Security officers.

“They have to hit you because they fear you, because they have no weapons against you, because you have won in the eyes of all of Cuba and the world,” said Gudín, known in Cuba for his popular persona El Bacán, reacting to the post where Fernández Era recounts the beating this Sunday.

"This is how Mandela and Gandhi won. This is how Lorca and so many others were killed. This is how they silenced Virgilio and Dulce María," continued Gudín, who emigrated to Miami in 2021.

El Bacán dedicated a poem to Fernández Era, which he composed a few years ago "thinking of the Homeland" together with the poet Alexander Besú Guevara as a tribute to the "greatness" of Fernández Era.

"The homeland will always be so open, / so belonging to everyone and all words, / that it is there where we are born. It, / in the traveler, walks the paths, / and alongside the shipwrecked, it sails with God," reads one of its stanzas.

Other comedians, artists, and friends have expressed their support for Fernández Era following the attack.

"My respects to you and your wife. We do not know each other personally, but your actions make me admire and support you, and I feel such disgust towards that system that words are not enough to describe it," commented actress Susana Pérez.

“When they can't even uphold a dysfunctional idea with dignity, this happens. My embrace and my respect,” said, for his part, Ulises Toirac.

Account of the beating

This Sunday, Fernández Era described as “fascists” the State Security officers who assaulted him last Friday and recounted the episode of physical aggression and death threats he was subjected to.

She also reported that the complaint she tried to file against her assailants at the Diez de Octubre police station was not processed, as she was told it was a case of minor injuries, despite having "a medical report in hand, issued at the Miguel Enríquez hospital."

Regarding the beating he suffered, Fernández Era recounted that, after refusing to stay home and not carrying out his usual protest in Central Park, an officer took him to "the Zanja Unit," where "I was kept in a cell along with five other detainees for about an hour, until I was moved to a room of approximately three square meters with only two chairs, mine without a backrest."

In the room, two State Security officers interrogated him, one of whom identified himself as Yoan.

"Amidst the discussion, with the cowardice that emanates from his very core, this Yoán hit me with punches in two rounds while the other one held me down," reported Fernández Era, who had already displayed the physical injuries on his body since Friday.

"The rest was no less injurious than a session of psychological torture that included the promise of pulling out my teeth one by one and the threat of 'removing me from the path' through 'contaminated food from the warehouse, holes in sidewalks and streets, runaway cars…' and other means at their disposal that I cannot recall due to the severity of the beating," he said regarding the death threats.

Fernández Era believes he has "more than enough reasons to label his captors as fascists, including their disregard for the Constitution of the Republic and the Criminal Procedure Law, which state that no one should be taken into custody without committing a crime and that detainees cannot be denied the right to communicate with their family members or access something as basic as drinking water."

"One should not expect from them 'little kisses', but neither should one expect them to establish a socialist emulation with their buddies from the Batista tyranny, because so many people did not die for that," he said.

The Cuban regime represses Fernández Era for his political ideas

In April, agents from the State Security arrested this Cuban intellectual as he was preparing to carry out his usual civic protest in Central Park, an action he has repeated every 18th for the past two years.

His wife, Laideliz Herrera Laza, reported that he was intercepted at the corner of their house and taken to the Aguilera Unit.

The writer demands the end of the totalitarian regime in Cuba, respect for civil rights, and an end to violations of due process by the PNR, the Prosecutor's Office, and State Security.

The repression against critical voices remains a constant in Cuba, where authorities criminalize peaceful protest and any form of public dissent.

Frequently asked questions about repression and support for Jorge Fernández Era in Cuba