Cuban Activists Rally Around Drunken YouTube Ranter

Cuban activists have found an unlikely cause celebré in the case of Juan Carlos González Marcos, who was sent to prison last month for drunkenly interrupting a shoot for a video about reggaeton with a rant about hunger. González was drinking, as he often did, at his neighborhood park in Havana, when he spotted a camera crew. He ran into the frame. “What we need here is a little bit of jama,” he cried, using the Cuban slang for food. “Go ahead and tape me! Jama!”

The video became a smash hit on YouTube, was shown on Hispanic TV in Miami, and made the cover of several magazines. A later video showed a drunken González dancing in the streets, singing that the police would put him away. They did. He was arrested and sentenced to two years in prison for “pre-criminal social endangerment,” a charge usually reserved for political dissidents. Human rights groups are working to free him, and think he could get a new trial. (More Cuba stories.)