Area : 110,860 sq.km.
Population : 11,270,000.
Language : Spanish.
Head of state : President Raúl Castro (interim).
Cuba - Annual report 2007
President Fidel Castro's stepping-aside in favour of his brother Raúl
did not reduce pressure on the independent media and 24 journalists
remain in prison. One of them, Guillermo Fariñas Hernández, staged
several hunger strikes over seven months, calling for free Internet
access for all Cubans. He was awarded the Reporters Without Borders
Cyber-freedom Prize.
Will defence minister and army commander Raúl Castro allow more basic
freedoms after taking over from his ailing brother as acting president
on 31 July 2006. So far the regime has continued hounding dissidents,
especially independent journalists. Cuba is still the world's second
biggest prison for journalists. Two were freed in 2006 but this was
quickly made up for by the jailing of two others, making a total of 24
being held.
Lamasiel Gutiérrez Romero, correspondent for the website Nueva Prensa
Cubana on the Isle of Youth, was freed on 22 March from Mantonegro
prison in Havana province after serving a seven-month sentence for
"civil disobedience and resistance." She returned to her home on the
Isle of Youth under heavy police surveillance and was banned from
leaving the island. Oscar Mario González Pérez, co-founder of the Grupo
de Trabajo Decoro agency, was freed on 20 November after 16 months in
prison without trial. He had been arrested on the eve of a demonstration
by dissidents in Havana in July 2005 and was never charged with anything.
Armando Betancourt, a freelance working with the Nueva Prensa Cubana
agency and editor of a small underground magazine, El Camagueyano, was
arrested on 23 May by state security police in Camagüey and sent a week
later to a police station where he was put in solitary confinement and
not allowed any visitors. He too has never been charged.
Just after Raymundo Perdigón Brito started up a small news agency,
Yayabo Press, with his sister on 17 November, he was arrested and given
a four-year prison sentence on 5 December for "socially dangerous
behaviour before an offence" by the provincial court in the central
province of Sancti Spíritus. Ahmed Rodríguez Albacia, 22, of the Jóvenes
sin Censura agency, also refused to drop his journalistic activities and
was held from 4 to 12 December at state security headquarters in Havana.
Arrests and short arbitrary detentions (about 30) during the second half
of the year exceeded the number of routine threats and physical attacks.
Odelín Alfonso, correspondent for Cubanet, and Milisa Valle Ricardo, of
Jóvenes sin Censura, were held for a day on 13 September in police
stations in Havana and the eastern city of Holguín. The same thing
happened on 2 November to Roberto Santana Rodríguez, a Havana freelance
for Cubanet, who had been summoned twice before by police in February
and April. In Santiago de Cuba, Guillermo Espinosa Rodríguez, of the
Agencia de Prensa Libre Oriental (APLO), was put under house arrest for
two years for "socially dangerous behaviour."
Pressure was maintained on those rounded up in the March 2003 crackdown,
both the 20 journalists still in prison and those who have been freed
for health reasons. Independent journalists Oscar Espinosa Chepe and
Jorge Olivera Castillo, released in 2004 and forbidden to leave the
country, had to appear before a Havana court, one for a "political
check" and one for another matter.
José Ubaldo Izquierdo Hernández, of the Grupo de Trabajo Decoro, was
declared "unfit for detention" by a prison doctor because of his very
poor health, but was not released. Normando Hernández González, head of
the Colegio de Periodistas Independientes de Camagüey, was taken to
hospital on 5 December with cellular tuberculosis and sent back to jail
three weeks after. Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta, of APLO, and Fabio Prieto
Llorente were repeatedly beaten by their guards. Alberto Gil Triay
Casales, of the La Estrella Solitaria agency, who was given a seven-year
prison sentence in November 2005 for "subversive propaganda," went on
hunger-strike in September.
The Internet
With less than 2 per cent of its population online, Cuba is one of the
most backward Internet countries. An investigation carried out by
Reporters Without Borders in October revealed that the Cuban government
uses several levers to ensure that this medium is not used in a
"counter-revolutionary" way. Firstly, it has more or less banned private
Internet connections. To surf the Internet or check their e-mail, Cubans
have to go to public access points such as Internet cafes, universities
and "youth computer clubs" where their activity is more easily
monitored. Secondly, the computers in all the Internet cafes and leading
hotels contain software installed by the Cuban police that triggers an
alert message whenever "subversive" key-words are spotted. The regime
also ensures that there is no Internet access for dissidents and
independent journalists, for whom communicating with people abroad is an
ordeal. Finally, the government also relies on self-censorship. You can
get 20 years in prison for writing "counter-revolutionary" articles for
foreign websites. You can even get five years just for connecting to the
Internet illegally. Few Internet users dare to run the risk of defying
the regime's censorship.
Guillermo Fariñas Hernández, head of the Cubanacán Press agency in Santa
Clara, staged several hunger-strikes to support his demand for all
Cubans to be allowed free access to the Internet. He was awarded the
Reporters Without Borders - Fondation de France Cyber-freedom Prize on
12 December.
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