My NFTs About cuban protests on July 11th
Thousands of Cubans marched on July 11 in the largest protests to rock the communist-run country since Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution. Security forces shut down the rallies amid a flurry of arrests and one death. The streets of the island nation have since been largely quiet.
Human Rights Watch (HRW) said it had documented at least 130 cases in which security forces violated due process, beat, sexually abused or forced into solitary confinement citizens participating in rallies it described as “overwhelmingly peaceful anti-government protests.”
Over 1,000 people were arrested, according to the Cuban rights group Cubalex, and at least 500 are still detained or under house arrest.
Artist and political activist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, who went on hunger strike earlier this year to push for greater freedoms, calls on Cubans to gather at the Malecón boardwalk in Havana on July 11 to support democracy.
Otero Alcántara is a Cuban performance artist and dissident, known for his public performances that openly criticize the Cuban government and its policies. Since 2018 Alcántara has been arrested dozens of times for his performances in violation of Decree 349, a Cuban law requiring artists to obtain advance permission for public and private exhibitions and performances.
Otero Alcántara, who is currently in a maximum-security prison in Guanajay, west of Havana, was arrested that day when he tried to join the demonstrations.
In honor of to the Cuban protests and Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, I made 4 NFTs* (non-fungible token) and uploaded them to opensea.io:
LMOA & MSI FOREVER #1
LMOA & 11J21 #1
LMOA FOREVER #2
LMOA & 11J21 #2
The NFTs can be viewed on: https://opensea.io/collection/great-stories
Also, I am working on a fifth NFT, it will have a post-apocalyptic theme related to the protests:
* A non-fungible token (NFT) is a unique and non-interchangeable unit of data stored on a digital ledger (blockchain). NFTs can be used to represent easily-reproducible items such as photos, artwork, videos, audio, and other types of digital files as unique items (analogous to a certificate of authenticity), and use blockchain technology to establish a verified and public proof of ownership. Copies of the original file are not restricted to the owner of the NFT, and can be copied and shared like any file. The lack of interchangeability (fungibility) distinguishes NFTs from blockchain cryptocurrencies, such as Bitcoin. Digital art was an early use case for NFTs, because of the ability of blockchain technology to assure the unique signature and ownership of NFTs.
News related to the protests:
New York Times: Cubans Denounce ‘Misery’ in Biggest Protests in Decades – 2021/07/11
Wall Street Journal: What Is Happening in Cuba? The Protests Against the Communist Regime.
Miami Herald: Otero Alcántara is on a hunger strike, other activists join protest.
Reuters: Cuba sees biggest protests for decades as pandemic adds to woes – 2021/07/11
Reuters: Human Rights Watch says Cuba arbitrarily abused, arrested protesters in July – 2021/10/19