Havana, December 4 (RHC)-- The Cuban Ministry of Culture issued a press release on Friday. The full text of that release follows:

On November 27, people with diverse claims gathered in front of the Ministry of Culture. Out of respect for the concerns and demands of young people linked to art, who converged there invited on social media by groups with other interests, the doors of the Ministry were opened for an exchange with Deputy Minister Fernando Rojas and representatives of the UNEAC and the Brothers Saiz Associations (AHS).

After more than 4 hours of dialogue, it was agreed to hold a new meeting, chaired by the Minister, for which lists of topics and participants would be reconciled beforehand.

On December 3, at 1:39 pm, an insolent e-mail was received at the Ministry of Culture, where the group set itself up as the spokesperson of all, and intended to impose, in a unilateral way, who, with whom and for what they will accept to hold the dialogue.

By including among the participants people who have long been self-excluded because of their aggressions against the patriotic symbols, common crimes, and frontal attacks on the leadership of the Cuban Revolution, under the guise of art, those who implemented this maneuver have just broken all possibility of dialogue.

The Minister of Culture will not meet with people who have direct contact and receive funding, logistical support and propagandistic backing from the United States Government and its officials. Neither will he meet with media outlets financed by US federal agencies.

We deny the assumptions -contained in the above-mentioned e-mail, which can be consulted in MINCULT's websites- on which this group, lacking legitimacy and ethics, has articulated its conditions to summon the institutions of Cuban culture.

For the youth and for all those artists who met in front of the Ministry of Culture on November 27, who have not compromised their work with the enemies of the Cuban nation, the opportunities for dialogue remain open, as has been a historical practice of the cultural institutions of the Revolution.

As the President of the Republic, Miguel Díaz-Canel Bermúdez, has reiterated, we are not a government in hiding. We are a Revolution in power, which has among its most formidable forces culture, a sovereign, independent and anti-imperialist culture from the root.

With the mercenaries, we do not understand each other.

Ministry of Culture.

Havana, December 4, 2020.

Year 62 of the Revolution.