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Sexuality prejudices in the 21st Century?

Engineer Luis Orlando Abascal Barbán, from Bayamo, Granma, was sentenced to be definitively removed from his job and a period of four years before rehabilitation because he had downloaded to his office-assigned laptop computer the documentary series Sexual Guide of the 21st Century 

9:38 Francisco Rodríguez Cruz / 25-07-2011

A CubaNews translation. Edited by Walter Lippmann.


The prejudices of quite a few people regarding information on human sexuality are well known, but seldom do they lead to work place conflicts like the one reported by Engineer Luis Orlando Abascal Barbán from Bayamo, Granma province.  

This employee of the provincial electric enterprise was a B specialist in electric machines and primary equipment in electric stations and sub stations until February this year when he was fired from his job and required to spend a period of four years before rehabilitation for having downloaded to his office-assigned laptop computer the documentary series Sexual Guide of the 21st Century.

The downloaded material was detected during a routine inspection by an informatics specialist of the enterprise and a disciplinary commission immediately applied the said measure stating that the detected material “even if it isn’t pornography, its content goes against the social interests and the good customs, principles and ethical values that characterize Cuban society¨.

Since Luis Orlando had a good job record and had never been admonished before, his case made an impact on his workmates. He knew that the inspection was coming but he did not erase the series “because I thought it wouldn´t be seen in such an absurd way”. Furthermore, he was authorized to take the laptop back to his home every day, so he couldn’t be accused of misusing working hours.

Abascal appealed to the primary labor justice bureau because the information security regulations of the enterprise allowed PC’s to contain up to 4 G bytes of musicals, films, series, soap operas and documentaries.

To make his case, the worker consulted the expert opinion of the chairperson of the provincial commission for sex education, sexuality specialist Msc. Zeida Santiesteban, who examined the program and produced her written statement specifying “…its high scientific, technical, didactic and educational merit makes it interesting and a reference tool not only for sexuality specialists but for the population in general…”

He even quoted a reference to this series published by Juventud Rebelde newspaper on March 19 in its section Sex Sense.

Luis Orlando reports that after numerous irregularities in the bureau´s performance, such as delays and the impossibility of presenting his evidence, the appeal was disregarded by the municipal court which overlooked the expert’s ´opinion and the arguments of a lawyer.

Tied up in this conflict, which seems to the victim to belong “in a Senel Paz story” –a Cuban author and script-writer well-known for the film Strawberry and Chocolate– this engineer cannot understand why he was so harshly penalized without considering his record and conduct, or his circumstance as a family man with two girls 5 years and 10 months old respectively and his wife being on maternity leave, or the expert's opinions on the educational nature of the series. Is it such a serious offense to search for scientific information on sexuality in 21st Century Cuba?

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Translator's note: This case was presented on TV a few weeks ago in Revista de la Mañana [Morning Review] (a very popular show that presents news, sports, the weather and so on) in a section called Al Derecho. The point was made that the whole thing was a gross mistake on the part of the administration and the local legal authorities.

 
   
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¿Prejuicios sobre sexualidad en el siglo XXI?

El ingeniero Luis Orlando Abascal Barbán, de Bayamo, Granma, fue sancionado a separación definitiva de su puesto de trabajo, con cuatro años sin poder rehabilitarse, por tener en la  computadora portátil que tenía asignada como medio básico la serie de documentales titulada La guía sexual del siglo XXI