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CUBA In March 2003 the government unleashed a violent crackdown marked by a potent display of police force, summary trials, and lengthy prison sentences for some 30 journalists. At the time it seemed the situation could get no worse. But exactly three years later, with humanitarian efforts and appeals from the international community having been exhausted, the repression in Cuba has only intensified. There are currently 25 journalists in prison, plus one under house arrest. Developments in the latest period include the jailing of one reporter, the prolonged detention without charges of another, and individual hunger strikes by prisoners to protest the violation of their rights. There have also been numerous legal abuses, police threats, expulsions of foreign journalists, and stepped-up efforts to censor the news. Mario Enrique Mayo, a lawyer and journalist serving a 20-year sentence, was granted a special release from prison on December 1, becoming the seventh journalist of the so-called Group of 75 to have been released for health reasons. Mayo, 41, stood out among even the most active prisoners of conscience by denouncing incidents of physical abuse and the lack of medical attention inside prison. His case garnered international attention last October when he cut his own face, stomach, and limbs with a homemade knife to demand his release. Mayo had twice attempted suicide in prison and was being treated with antidepressants. He also suffered from hypertension and had had hemorrhoid surgery after being imprisoned in March 2003. He is in extremely poor health. It should be noted that the special release for health reasons is covered under Decree-Law 62 of 1987, which requires that the remainder of the sentence be served under house arrest but does not modify the actual sentence. In other words, the individual may be returned to prison should the authorities so decide. Indeed, the government has resorted to intimidation tactics to try to neutralize the work of those under special release. Journalist Jorge Olivera was summoned to a municipal court on February 21, where an “enforcement judge” told him about the “control system” that would be used to govern his activity. This system would include restricting his ability to leave Havana and requiring him to work for a government agency, participate in neighborhood organizations, and “uphold proper social behavior.” If he failed to comply, his special release would be revoked and he would be returned to prison. Oscar Espinosa Chepe, a journalist and economist, received a similar summons on February 29. Both Olivera and Espinosa Chepe, who are serving 18- and 20-year sentences, respectively, have been granted refugee status by the United States and are ready to emigrate with their families, but the Cuban government has not issued them exit permits. Two other journalists under special release, Carmelo Díaz Fernández and Edel José García, also have visas from the United States and are awaiting permission from the government to leave. Both are suffering from various ailments, and three of the four men mentioned above are between 60 and 68 years of age. Several journalists, who are still in prison serving sentences ranging from seven months to 27 years, were transferred to prisons closer to their homes. However, the prisoners and the family members visiting them have been subjected to abuse, and prison life is marked by deplorable food, a lack of clean water, and overcrowded cells. In addition, the imprisoned journalists are often placed together with highly dangerous common criminals. Eighteen of the prisoners have serious health problems—in some cases chronic conditions and in others, diseases contracted during their imprisonment. The Cuban government has refused to grant them a special release. Two of them—José Luis García Paneque and Albert Santiago Du Bouchet—are currently hospitalized, and Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta has been on a hunger strike since March 4. In addition, Miguel Galván Gutiérrez, who is serving a 26-year sentence, is disabled. The most troubling cases are the
following: Now joining the ranks of the imprisoned journalists is Lamasiel Gutiérrez Romero, 37, the only female reporter behind bars in Cuba. Gutiérrez was serving seven months’ probation on the Isle of Youth, but her house arrest was revoked on October 7 and she was taken to Manto Negro Prison in Havana for failing to discontinue her work as an independent journalist. Her situation is particularly trying: her husband, lawyer Roberto Jiménez Posada, has been under arrest for three years on charges of conducting enemy propaganda, insulting public officials, and revealing state secrets. The couple has a 7-year-old son who is now living with his maternal grandmother. Meanwhile, journalist Oscar Mario González remains in a Havana prison, where he has been held since July 22 of last year without charges or the right to bail. González, 62, was arrested near his home on the suspicion that he was on his way to an anti-government protest outside the French embassy. He has been told that he will be charged with violating the 1999 Law for the Protection of Cuba’s National Security and Economy (Law 88), which was used to hand down long prison sentences to dissidents and journalists in the spring of 2003. For the more than 50 journalists and media workers throughout the country who are striving to keep independent journalism alive in Cuba, work conditions are overwhelmingly adverse. The lack of access to equipment and technology are minor limitations in the escalating spiral of police intimidation, reprisals, temporary detentions, and harassment by mobs organized and instigated by state security agents. Their reports still find their way into the Internet, radio broadcasts, and foreign publications—mainly in Miami—whose support is crucial to the survival of this professional movement. Since last November, several independent journalists have been targeted by public protests (known as “acts of repudiation”) outside their homes. Paramilitary attacks on journalist Oscar Sánchez Madan were reported January 21 and 23 in Havana. On February 17 he was threatened by the head of the pro-government neighborhood committee for having mentioned his name on a program broadcast by Radio Martí, a station run by the U.S. government. Journalist Roberto Santana Rodríguez was summoned by state security on February 13 to an interview at a police station in Marianao, Havana. During the interview, an officer showed him a bulky file with Santana’s news reports that had been posted on the Internet, along with a list of phone calls that could serve as evidence of his illegal work as a journalist. On February 19 Gilberto Manuel González Delgado was subjected to a search of his home, led by a state security agent and two members of the neighborhood committee. A typewriter and other items were confiscated, and he was threatened with prosecution under Law 88. On November 7 journalist Carlos Serpa Maceira, a resident of the Isle of Youth, was held for three hours at a police station in Havana for not having a “temporary residence permit” in the Cuban capital. Journalist Luis Guerra Javier, a Camaguey resident, has held a visa to emigrate to the United States for three months now, but authorities have withheld his exit permit. At least ten other incidents of harassment against journalists in Havana and the rest of the country occurred during the past six months. Also noteworthy is the hunger protest by psychologist Guillermo Fariñas, director of the independent news agency Cubanacán Press. Fariñas was hospitalized in the intensive care unit of Arnaldo Milián Provincial Hospital in Santa Clara due to his precarious health. Fariñas, 43, was hospitalized February 7 due to the ill effects of the hunger strike. He began his strike on January 31 to demand that the government allow him and his colleagues access to the Internet—a highly sensitive issue among Cuban professionals and the people in general. Internet access in Cuba is restricted to agencies of the national government, educational and cultural institutions, and foreigners who pay for the service in convertible currency. No Cubans may have unrestricted access to the Internet, not even if they pay for it in convertible currency. The government acknowledges that it has “Internet regulations” and blocks Web sites under the pretext that they “damage Cuban sovereignty” because they belong to “subversive, terrorist counterrevolutionary organizations.” True to its belief in controlling Internet access, Cuba showed up in November at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia to argue that the Internet should be managed by an international organization. In addition, the Cuban delegation blamed the United States for blocking Cuba’s ability to connect to an underwater fiber-optic cable, which would make it easier for the island to gain broadband access and would reduce the costs of connecting to the Internet. According to government figures, Cuba now has more than 1,500 Web sites, some 150,000 people using the Internet, and over 790,000 people with e-mail accounts. But the “social distribution of the Internet” that the Cuban government advocates—including its promotion of the so-called Young People’s Computer Club—is designed as a rigid intranet, one that is distorted by the filtering of sites expressing opinions contrary to official government policy. As part of a new anti-corruption campaign, the Cuban government has undertaken an offensive to stop the proliferation of unauthorized satellite television signals, mainly in Havana. Police conduct raids in residential neighborhoods to search for signal redistribution centers to disable the networks, destroy the antennas, and assess fines on the offenders. Satellite and cable television reception in Cuba is restricted to hotels and foreign residents. The illegal operations are run by individuals who purchase satellite receivers to sell the service to their neighbors for a modest monthly price. The channel lineup consists mostly of Spanish-language channels from the United States, such as Univisión and Telemundo, and local stations from Miami. Thousands of Cubans pay for this underground service as an alternative source of information and entertainment to that of state television, which carries a heavy load of political propaganda promoting the so-called “Battle of Ideas.” Obviously, the government’s concern is rooted in ideological reasons rather than legal ones. The March 8 issue of the government newspaper Granma warned readers about the programming on these channels, where “what is presented as light entertainment, comedy, and the hypocritical free flow of information serves as a vehicle for gross distortions of reality in Cuba, as well as banality, consumerism, and other hallmarks of capitalist society.” The government announced that charges would be filed against Carlos Valdés González, a Cuban residing in the United States, who was arrested in Havana on June 24 of last year for smuggling equipment to pick up television signals. Two Cubans living on the island—Liván Salgado Carrillo, a security agent and guard at Havana International Airport, and Darién Rodríguez Lobaina—have also been charged in relation to this case for accepting bribes and receiving stolen goods. Not even government-run programs can escape the government’s stepped-up efforts to control television programming. A February 15 message from the Cuban Radio and Television Institute (ICRT) announced that the music and comedy program “El Expreso” was being discontinued because it was not “consistent with the institute’s programming policies.” The government press lashed out at “El Expreso”—which ran in prime time Sunday evenings on Cubavisión—for “resorting to the fodder of fluff magazines” and trading in “easy entertainment.” The government’s objections were spurred by the program’s rebroadcast of the wedding of actor and host Jorge Martínez, which had been held at a Havana hotel and attended by a number of celebrities. Indeed, the government press has declared that it is undertaking a new process of “rectification of errors and negative tendencies,” called for by Fidel Castro. The call was issued on Cuban Press Day, March 14, for an “all-out fight against the demoralizing tendencies of those who have lost their ethical virtue to venality” and for journalists to get involved “in a responsible and committed manner” in this “battle for order” to “measure up to [Castro’s] expectations.” The banner of the government press remains its worship of Castro’s ideas. On February 6 the pro-government International Journalism Institute in Havana went so far as to announce a series of events to “analyze the journalistic work of Commander in Chief Fidel Castro” with the participation of leading journalists and researchers. The political conflict with Washington has led to escalating tensions and propaganda tactics. In late January, the U.S. Interests Section in Havana set up a huge electronic billboard on its building to broadcast news, human rights messages, and quotes on freedom by world leaders, as well as brief comments on the situation in Cuba. The government immediately responded with a massive demonstration outside the Interests Section, and within days it had installed a dense collection of flagpoles with black flags, to block the view of the screen and denounce “terrorist acts” against Cuba. There have also been numerous arrests and bans of foreign journalists and individuals who want to visit Cuba to learn about the situation of the Cuban people. In early December Anna Bikont, a reporter for the Polish newspaper Gazeta Wyborcza, and Swiss journalist Nelly Norton were detained and forced onto a flight to Italy. They had entered Cuba with tourist visas and were arrested in the city of Sancti Spiritus after interviewing dissidents. All of the notes and photographs they had taken during their visit were confiscated. The world-famous model Helena Houdova and psychologist Mariana Kroftova, both of them from the Czech Republic, were detained on January 23 the while taking pictures on the outskirts of Havana and held for 11 hours. The photos were to be used in an exhibition for humanitarian purposes. On February 18, Argentine historian and journalist José Ignacio García Hamilton was prevented from entering Havana and was forced to leave on the same plane in which he had landed in Cuba. Although García Hamilton had a visa, Cuban immigration authorities told him they were under orders to prevent him from entering the country. The Argentine intellectual and his wife had planned on visiting Cuba for one week. In a January 22 television appearance,
Castro railed against Fernando Rasberg, the Havana correspondent for BBC Radio,
calling him a “tipejo” (roughly translated, “jerk”)
and “the biggest liar of all the journalists” accredited in Cuba.
The invective was repeated several times in response to an article titled “Revolución
energética a oscuras” (Energy revolution in the dark), in which
the reporter described a recent blackout that had left the Cuban capital in
the dark for several hours.
Copyright © 2003 Inter American Press Association. All rights reserved. . |
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