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CUBA
Recent weeks have seen a new wave of repression of political dissidents and
independent journalists.
In early March Lexter Téllez Castro and Carlos Brizuela Yera of the Avileña
Free Press Agency (APLA) and the Colegio of Independent Journalists were arrested
by Ciego de Avila Province police. The March 4 arrests occurred when the two
independent journalists visited the hospital to inquire after fellow journalist
Jesús Alvarez Castillo of the Cuba Press Agency, who had been severely
beaten a few hours earlier by the so-called "rapid reaction brigades."
The beating cracked one of Alvarez Castillo's cervical vertebrae and caused
him to lose consciousness.
Also in early March the director of the Colegio of Independent Journalists,
Normando Hernández González, woke to a police raid at his residence
in the Camagüey Province town of Vertientes. Meanwhile, in nearby Las Tunas
Province, journalist Juan Basulto Morell, 70, of the independent news agency
Libertad was beaten by an unknown assailant. In Guantanamo, at Cuba's eastern
tip, authorities arrested InfoLux Press news agency correspondent Luis Torres
Cardosa.
The Manuel Márquez Sterling Journalists Association, which counts half
of Cuba's 120 independent journalists among its members, as well as the Cuban
Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN), denounced these
acts as part of a wave of official repression following the incidents at the
Mexican Embassy in Havana.
Repression with impunity is not limited to the alternative press. During the
February 27 assault on the Mexican Embassy by 21 Cubans, journalists Andrew
Cawthorne and Alfredo Tedeschi, both Reuters correspondents accredited in Cuba,
were attacked by state security forces to prevent them from covering the incident.
Tedeschi's camera was confiscated to prevent the transmission of video.
That evening the police also moved other foreign journalists away from the scene
by force, after they had come to report on the events at the embassy.
This wave of repression coincides with the official celebration of Cuban Press
Day on March 14, which ironically commemorates the independent newspaper Patria
and its freedom-fighting publisher, José Martí. The pro-government
symposium features panel discussions on "Public Opinion and Press Freedom."
The purpose of the celebration is to sing the praises of the pro-government
press and render homage to Fidel Castro. "March 14 is also a show of appreciation
for [Castro]," wrote Granma, the official newspaper of Cuba's Communist
Party.
At the symposium, Cuban parliamentary speaker Ricardo Alarcón stressed
that "never before has a committed and incisive activist press been so
important," noting that in these times in which we live "man is robbed
of the ability to think."
Meanwhile, journalists like Julio César Gálvez, who left the ranks
of the official press in July 2001, was detained for questioning and threatened
with incarceration if he did not give up independent journalism. Gálvez
currently lives and works in Havana.
Also prohibited are activities aimed strictly at professional development and
intellectual enrichment, such as the technical training course organized by
the Manuel Márquez Sterling Journalists Association. The authorities
blocked access to the Association's Havana offices last October and turned the
course registrants away. The course had to be postponed.
The police continue to watch independent journalists as a rule, in order to
restrict their access to news sources. Obstacles to the practice of journalism
are still common, such as intimidating phone calls, temporary detentions and
forced relocation of reporters away from newsworthy events.
On December 25 in the city of Florida, Camagüey, police beat five journalists
attempting to cover the opening of an independent library. Among them were Téllez
Castro, Brizuela Yera and Hernández González, who have been mentioned
already in this report.
On December 28 journalist María Elena Alpízar of Placetas, Villa
Clara, was followed during a visit to Havana by a man who struck her in the
face, damaging her sight in one eye.
In January journalists Jorge Olivera and Carmelo Díaz were stopped and
questioned in broad daylight on their way to cover an event. Journalist Carmen
Carro was also violently accosted in January by police, who seized her tape
recorder as she was on her way to report on a public demonstration by dissident
groups.
Just before the ceremonies organized throughout the country by the opposition
movement to commemorate the sixth anniversary of the death of the four Cuban
pilots shot down on February 24, 1996, journalists Isabel Rey and María
Elena Alpízar were prevented from covering the events as they occurred.
Alpízar was even forced into a police car to be taken outside the city.
Carlos Alberto Domínguez of the Cuba Verdad news agency remains under
arrest in Havana for attempting to report on the dissident movement's peaceful
activities on February 24.
Foreign travel and emigration permits continue to be delayed and withheld. In
violation of immigration agreements in place between Havana and Washington,
"white cards" granting official permission to leave the country are
still being denied to Oswaldo Céspedes and the poet Manuel Vázquez
Portal, who are both active in the independent journalism movement. The ban
preventing CubaPress news director Raúl Rivero from leaving the country
temporarily has been extended by way of retaliation to his wife, whose requests
to visit her son abroad have repeatedly been denied.
No progress has been made on the obstacles faced by independent journalists
in getting their reports to foreign news outlets and distributors. News stories
are still being transmitted by telephone (collect calls) and, from Havana, by
fax; fax access is more difficult for correspondents outside the capital. Typewriters,
tape recorders, and even fax machines and computers donated to journalists continue
to be confiscated in police raids.
According to Cubanet, which publishes the work of independent journalists in
Miami, faxes have become more frequent in recent months. The movement currently
has some 13 fax machines in Havana.
In addition to the four titles mentioned in the last report, Cubanet's ongoing
efforts to publish the work of independent journalists and poets include the
novel Cartas a Leandro (Letters to Leandro) by Ramón Díaz Marzo,
which appeared in the past six months, and a forthcoming book of articles by
Manuel David Orrio.
This year the third El Heraldo literary competition, an initiative by the Cuban
Independent Libraries Project (PBIC), will award a monetary prize in the journalistic
article category. The prize will be awarded in May and the winners published
on the PBIC's website, which is posted from Miami with the cooperation of the
Research Center for a National Option.
E-mail and Internet access are still off-limits to members of the independent
press. Average citizens who want a computer at home must first obtain a letter
attesting to their "need," which must be signed by the minister with
jurisdiction over the field in which they work. This letter is a stepping stone
to the National Office of Technological Security, where a committee evaluates
the application and forwards it to the Computer Security Department at the Interior
Ministry for approval.
The independent press cannot afford the online services offered by hotels and
other tourist facilities using a system of cards paid for in dollars. Thus,
they can only access the Internet on the black market or through a diplomatic
mission.
The irony of this state of affairs is that Cuba's government claims to be driving
an internal technological revolution and championing poor and developing countries'
rights in this area. At the Seventh Information Technology Conference held in
Havana early this year, 35 countries discussed the "digital divide"
between rich and poor countries. The Cuban delegation in particular advocated
"widespread use of technologies as a necessary precondition for development."
As part of this farce the Cuban government loudly trumpeted the Havana release
of Propagandas Silenciosas (Silent Propaganda), a critical study by Ignacio
Ramonet on information multinationals and manipulation of the news. The book
launch at a downtown Havana theater was presided over by Fidel Castro, who personally
managed the publication of the Cuban edition's 100,000 copy print run, over
and above the 10,000 copies originally planned. Propagandas Silenciosas is also
featured on the website of the pro-government Journalists Union of Cuba (UPEC).
In December the leaders of Cuba's official press endorsed the Code of Ethics
for government workers. Taken together with the Journalists' Code of Ethics
approved in 1999, this document does nothing more than add toothless pages on
journalists' right to report the news and provide a public service, while making
the practice of journalism even more subservient to political interests.
Future graduates of Cuba's two existing journalism schools will be required
to complete an internship in keeping with the government's call for "activist
journalism." They will be sent to Cuban medical outposts in poor African
and Latin American countries to write propaganda stories on the performance
of Cuban healthcare workers there.
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Copyright © 2003 Inter American Press Association.
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