An interview with Cuban punk rocker Gorki Aguila

Pedazos de la Isla interviews Cuban punk rocker Gorki Aguila:

Gorki Aguila talks independent art, new album and his most recent arrest

Gorki Aguila, lead singer of the punk-rock band ‘Porno para Ricardo’ (censored in Cuba, although with lots of fans in the “underground”), chats with this blog about the release of their new album, “El Maleconazo”, and other topics.

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Pedazos de la Isla: Gorki, first of all, tell us about your more recent arrest at the hands of the political police this past Saturday 9th of March. When did it happen and why?

Gorki: The arrest took place in the morning when I was leaving my daughter’s house. The police had been surrounding the house since 6 AM to try and impede the presentation of the album which was going to take place in my house, along with an exposition by the graffiti artist Danilo Maldonado (“El Sexto”). State Security was very interested in keeping that event from happening, not only because the nature of the CD and the exposition, but also because of the recent announcement of the death of Hugo Chavez. Then, they carried out a really exaggerated police operation against me. I was physically assaulted, they used violence against me despite that I didn’t even resist the arrest. They shoved me into the police vehicle and took me to a police unit on Infanta and Manglar. We’ve been there a couple of times before.

PDLI: What happened inside that police unit?

Gorki: These people from State Security interrogated me. Like I said, one of their main interests was for the album launch not to go through. It was that kind of ridiculous dialogue, always asking the same questions and telling us the same threats. The arrest was violent. I still feel pain on my neck, my chest and parts of my back because of how the police treated me…they threw me against the car and shoved my face against the car seat. I couldn’t see where I was being taken.

PDLI: What does this say of the system?

Gorki: When you see that a government does not tolerate an exposition or a simple CD presentation, then I think that’s a very fearful government, a government which fears simple things, like these, cultural and artistic activities.

I was chatting the other day with Reinaldo Escobar, the husband of blogger Yoani Sanchez, and he was joking around telling me that the G2 (State Security) have indirectly become the main promoters of our projects, in this case of our most recent album. Each time they carry out a big show like this, they further promote our CD or our activities, because then more people end up finding out about it.

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