CEPEDA SPOKEN: “I don’t agree with not having the freedom to talk to a person”

By Robiel Vega/ @robielcuba87

New voices continue to be added against the absurd regulation that prohibits any person: athlete, coach or manager; that is part of the National Series has the slightest contact with the alternative media or simply with any “unauthorized” person, at the risk of suffering sanctions and suspensions against them. On this occasion it was one of the active legends of the Series, the great Frederich Cepeda, who gave his opinion after the scandal of the cases of Andrés Hernández and Alexis Varona.

Cepeda is one of those historical athletes that still honors the highest category of Cuban baseball; Elsa Ramos, a journalist from the Provincial Station Radio Sancti Spíritus and the Escambray Newspaper, spoke with him; who in his Facebook profile recorded the interview:

“I am very concerned about that, even there in Granma I did not give an interview to a man who is always on television… but last year I gave interviews, as I always do, very kindly to all the people who ask me for them, but what happens? ? , they put it on another page and I had problems, I was called by the Commission even though the Series had already finished.»

In the world we are living in today, interviews are taken from different places, there are journalists who write for a Cuban newspaper or media outlet and tomorrow they don’t do it anymore or they do it for two media outlets, that is none of my business, each one makes of his life what he wants are people who, in addition to being journalists, have created a friendship with one as a public figure, Aliet Artzola, he is my friend and today he is in another medium; but I met him in Granma, like Michel Contreras, I met him in Cubadebate and today he writes for Cibercuba”

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The nonsense of the norm and the uncertainty it generates, not only when it comes to granting statements, but also when it comes to measuring what is said very well; it is something that no athlete in any league is subjected to: ”An uncertainty is created for one and you say: “if I say this, and I don’t say the other, and if this person is or is not?”, I will never know, it is in the Regulation that official media, but you yourself, Elsa, you are here today and tomorrow with another name you can write for another page and it is the same interview that I gave you, and when everything is clarified, I am in a problem, or other athletes are as it has happened to them”

It is inconceivable in times of social networks that sanctions be issued for giving a simple statement or making a promotional video to a Facebook page, which was not even a media outlet and whose main function is to promote Cuban baseball without alluding to political themes in their publications. It is one thing to give access or not to press areas in the different sports facilities to non-accredited media and another very different thing is to prohibit any contact with them.

Cepeda has been a man who has never been at the center of politics when making statements. He always very measured and focusing on baseball and his career, therefore, his words are authorized when talking about these issues:

“As human beings we have to know how to defend ourselves and defend what we defend, which is the main thing, I have been to the Classics, the Olympics and all the media are at a press conference and they ask you much more aggressive questions about what has happened now and one You have to respond with your criteria, at least I always have.

Right now, with the brands, and many, who are my friends, have asked me for interviews, I have always put the points on the i’s: “whatever you want to ask about my career” and I have always put above all, where I have become a baseball player and a human being that is my country, but I do not agree that I cannot have the freedom to talk to a person without being able to defend myself because I have the culture to do so. I am a public figure and when the National Series is over, what do I do? Do I hide in my house? I can just say yes or no to them, but I can say yes or no to you too Elsa”

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For those who defend the process and for those who do not, they always have the option of saying NO to an interview or to a question X, they even have the possibility of answering it according to their own criteria, but it must be the decision of the person interviewed to set those limits, not from external agents that curtail individual freedoms. The option can never be to censor; After what happened with Andrés and Varona, the great mass of the people spoke and in an overwhelming majority, even in the accredited media themselves, a total rejection of this measure could be observed.

As it was known at the press conference on Monday, February 21: “the option is maintained to continue the accreditation processes of some unofficial media that defend Cuban baseball and its National Series, and that criteria continue to be collected to perfect these regulations for the next season”. One might wonder if there is any truth to these statements or is it just a “warm cloth” to calm the masses, in the same way, we will continue to be aware of any fact that threatens human dignity.

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