Cuban journalist Carla Colomé wins the Mario Vargas Llosa Young Journalism Prize with a story on July 11

With a report that reveals the origins of the social outbreak of July 11 in Cuba, published in El Estornudo Magazine, Cuban journalist Carla Gloria Colomé Santiago received the 1st Vargas Llosa Chair Young Journalism Award on Tuesday, during the celebration of the Liberty Forum & Freedom Dinner, in the city of Miami.

The award, endowed with 10,000 US dollars, has an annual frequency and is part of the Atlas Red-Cátedra Vargas Llosa Prize for Young Journalism initiative, which seeks to promote thought and creativity among promising young journalists in the effort to develop stories, editorials and narratives on the principles of freedom. Its jury, in this first edition, was chaired by the Cuban writer, journalist and politician Carlos Alberto Montaner, a resident of the United States.

“It is a very informative article about what happened in Cuba, when the Cuban people manifested, in the face of the dictatorship they suffer, with great courage, with great strength, their protest, and their desire to live in freedom. It is a magnificent text, that She has received a lot of information from the interior of Cuba, and for her, for Carla Gloria Colomé Santiago, I ask for a strong applause “, declared the Peruvian writer Mario Vargas Llosa, Nobel Prize in Literature, at the award ceremony.

“July 11 in San Antonio de los Baños: What is seen / what is not seen“is the title of the winning report, which was published on July 22, and reveals what was one of the greatest mysteries of the most important anti-government protests in the last 63 years of Cuban history: how it was conceived, where and who promoted them. “When dozens of young people are still in prison, when one death has been reported as a result of the demonstrations and when the government, in order to reassure the people, has announced the temporary elimination of customs restrictions on medicines and food, the The protest of San Antonio de los Baños, town of Ariguanabo, continues to seem like a mystery to us, “says the story, at the beginning.

“Who summoned the Ariguanabenses? How, if at all, were they organized? Was there a program or was there, at least, one convocation? Who are behind the protest that caused a large part of Cuba to launch itself into the streets on July 11? ” These were the questions that led the investigation, developed from the United States, that were answered throughout history.

Regarding this recognition, the Cuban journalist and writer Carlos Manuel Álvarez, director of The sneeze, described Colomé Santiago as “a piece of journalist with a unique sensitivity”, an exemplary reporter and “sui generis chronicler, third bat in the team of natural talent with words.”

Colomé Santiago, 31, graduated in Journalism from the University of Havana in 2013 and later did a master’s degree from the Autonomous University of Mexico. In 2016 she was one of the founders of El Estornudo Magazine, of whose team he has been part since then, and in CiberCuba He also worked for several years, until 2021. Currently, works as a journalist for People magazine and resides in New York City.

“They have interrogated us, they have intimidated us, we have worked without any legal protection, they have exiled us, they have threatened us, they have detained and kidnapped us, they have tried to separate us, we have suffered significant casualties. it was over with everything and we survived, we are about to turn six years old and just a few days ago we published the most important report of the medium in its history, “said Álvarez, who accompanied the young woman at the event.

The most relevant report published by the medium to which he referred so far was that of Five complaints of sexual abuse against Fernando Bécquer, by Cuban journalist Mario Luis Reyes, as he has been one of the ones that has caused the greatest impact. Although it is not the first journalistic material to denounce this type of gender violence against Cuban public figures, many feminists agree to perceive it as the starting point of the Me Too movement in Cuba because of the activism and debate that has followed. ; to the point of leading to formal accusations of the musician’s victims before the police and forcing state institutions such as the Federation of Cuban Women and the National Center for Sex Education to speak out.

About the journalistic achievements of The sneezeÁlvarez recalled that this is not the first award his team receives. He himself won the Don Quijote Prize for Journalism this year, with the chronicle “Three Cuban girls”, and in 2017 Jorge Carrasco won the Gabriel García Márquez Ibero-American Journalism Prize, with the profile “Historia de un paria”.

“We did, in a sustained, chronic way in Cuba, something that when we studied we did not believe could be done. We have helped put the Cuban reality on the map of the language and we also constantly incorporate young journalists with little or no experience in the trade, so we have also been our own school. The initial idea, to count a country outside of its geographical conventions, we have been fulfilling, right? “, added Carlos Manuel Álvarez.

To date, in Cuba there are more than 670 people deprived of liberty for having participated in some way in the protests that crossed the country on July 11, 12 and 13. At least 122 of them face the accusation of sedition, a crime against State Security, and the prosecution asks for sentences of between 13 and 30 years in prison.