Professor Natacha de la Torre Fariñas reported that she is being removed from her teaching position at the San Alejandro Academy and attributed this decision to her critical stances regarding the political and social situation in Cuba.
De la Torre presented her case in a lengthy letter published on Saturday on Facebook, formally addressed to the Minister of Culture, Alpidio Alonso Grau, although she clarified from the outset that she did not expect to find "resonance or empathy" from him.
The central point of his complaint is the decision to remove the subject he has been teaching for years and what he interprets as an attempt to get him to leave the institution of his own accord.
"Now I say that they are sidelining me again. They want me to leave on my own initiative to be free of blame," wrote the teacher, who claimed that some time ago her department head directly told her: "Go."
Later, she became even more explicit about the reasons she attributes to this marginalization: "They push me out of the way because they do not want to see and refuse to listen. I became the dissonant note. I am someone 'politically inappropriate'."
According to his account, the situation culminated in the loss of the subject he taught: "Today they are taking away the subject that I have taught for so many years. They are doing it because I am not part of the feast."
De la Torre explained that his connection with San Alejandro goes back many years. When Psychology was removed from the curriculum, he began teaching Didactics and continued to advise students who needed knowledge of psychology for their theses and other projects.
She also recalled that, during a period when she worked as a psychopedagogue, she even worked in hallways after not having received her own space.
The professor linked the current conflict to her refusal to hide the conditions under which, she claims, teachers are forced to work.
He mentioned low salaries, transportation difficulties, lack of water and electricity, and the expenses that workers themselves have to bear to access phone and Internet services.
«I don't want tips; I don't want generous purchases of rags managed to alleviate the hardships of those who have nothing. I want my salary; fair compensation for working», he wrote.
He also made it clear that he does not intend to give up teaching because of these shortcomings: "I... refuse to work when I couldn't sleep, or when I had to choose between going without water or going to San Alejandro. But I see no reason to abandon teaching. I do see a reason to assert that Cuba needs a radical change."
The letter also contains harsh criticisms of the Cuban political system by questioning the notion that leaders and institutions can act as owners of the spaces they manage and explicitly mentioned Raúl Castro, Miguel Díaz-Canel, and Alpidio Alonso.
The professor also stated that the academy expects her to avoid publicly explaining the true reasons when she cannot attend work.
"They want me to invent an excuse, an illness, or a problem that doesn't create dissonance. Above all, they want me to be a part of the lie," he pointed out.
De la Torre concluded his letter by directly confronting the Minister of Culture: «I stand on the side of reason. You, Minister Alpidio, stand on the side of power».
Unfortunately, academic and intellectual spaces in Cuba have been for years a target of censorship, pressure, and retaliation against teachers, artists, and thinkers who express critical positions towards the Cuban regime.
In January, for example, the professor and playwright Roberto Viña Martínez reported being expelled from the institutions where he taught after making critical posts on social media.
Two months later, the architect and professor Abel Tablada de la Torre was removed from CUJAE after publishing critical reflections on the situation in the country and the conditions of the Cuban university system.
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