Cuba has long been ranked as one of the world’s most repressive environments for information and communication. The communist regime that has held Cuba in its control has long been criticized for human rights violations. Under the stronghold of Fidel and Raul Castro since 1959, Cubans have had their personal rights limited.
Human rights organizations and the press have reported that citizens were beaten, shamed, and subjected to arbitrary arrests in order to repress those who criticized the government. For many years Cuban citizens were locked up in their own country. The population is extremely repressed and the inhabitants don’t talk about their life conditions as they fear denunciation from the CDR (Committees for the Defense of the Revolution).
Recently , the US and Cuba have emerged from decades of cold war hostility raising expectations of sweeping change.
In the street of Havana I took pictures of people in their every day life attempting to show their lack of freedom and how years of communism had affected them. Some of the Cubans I encountered think that opening the doors of capitalism could be the beginning of a new life leaning towards more freedom for them. Are better relations with US a new dawn for Cuba?
