Noel King

Who could ask for anything more?

My name is Joe Suarez, and I was a journalist in Cuba.

You left in the summer of 2022.

Why did you leave Cuba?

Well, I left Cuba basically because of the persecution that the regime imposed on journalists, independent activists, people who want freedom for the island and change.

And I was one of those.

I was doing investigative reporting on things like torture, political prisoners, persecution of religious minorities.

In that case, that put a target over me, and the regime harassed me in different ways.

I was kidnapped once by the political police.

I was detained several times.

My family was harassed, my mother.

my wife also who is a journalist also was a journalist in cuba so the the break point for us was when the regime says you are raising a child we had a baby in that moment uh that is gonna became a counter-revolutionary because you are a counter-revolutionary so we're gonna take your kid from you away from you

And that was our breaking point.

My wife and I, we talked about that because we think family is the first homeland and we had to protect our kid.

I think we try to protect him as much as we can.

And for instance, there was a moment when the political police kidnapped me in the middle of the street.

I was walking in the neighborhood and trying to get some money from an ATM.

And the political police just came and they said,

You have to come with us.

And they basically were trying to threaten me because of my investigative reporting on political prisoners, torture, that kind of stuff.