Miami (October 21, 2011)—In Cuba “the panorama of press freedom has not changed, government news media continue to be used as vehicles of propaganda, and censorship and disinformation remain unalterable,” says the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) in a report presented at its recent General Assembly held in Lima, Peru.
Following is an extract from the report on Cuba, which can be viewed in full at http://bit.ly/qNfy2R:
“In this period no journalists have been sent to prison, but actions of surveillance, control and repression have not ceased. Detentions during a few days or hours have intensified, as has the beating of opponents by mobs or with the direct intervention of police.
“During August and September the government launched a repressive, open, systematic and violent wave of actions against the opposition and especially the Ladies in White. Numerous detentions were carried out within the framework of processions in Santiago and Havana on the occasion of Day of the Virgin of Charity, Cuba’s patron saint. Acts of repudiation, beatings by police, detentions, and public and private threats were the methods employed. The international press has reported on these abusive actions, however it has not been able to raise condemnation by any government in the world, not even in Latin America.
“At the same time, a campaign to discredit the Ladies in White was launched, accusing them of being ‘incited and paid’ by Washington and of provoking disorder in order to ‘justify attacks’ upon Cuba.
“Nevertheless, the use of force and application of violence in public, at a higher level, are indications that on the one hand the government has given up improving its image before the European Union and has ended the apparent honeymoon with the Roman Catholic Church, the standard-bearer of a mediation process that gave rise to the sending into exile of dozens of journalists belonging to the Group of 75, convicted in the so-called Black Spring, and the tacit authorization for the Ladies in White not to be bothered during their regular Sunday marches.
“The Cuban Human Rights and National Reconciliation Commission in September alone recorded 563 arrests, the highest figure in 30 years. For this reason the number of political prisoners far from decreasing has in fact increased. And in the first eight months of this year there were 2,221 brief detentions, almost double the number in the same period in 2010.
“Much more than in the past there is an attempt to limit or impede public access to alternative information channels. Postponed until further notice has been the putting into operation of the fiber optic submarine cable installed between Venezuela and Cuba, about which so much was being said some months ago. So still pending is access – including supervised access – by the population to the Internet, which continues to be a privilege and luxury for just a few.”
The IAPA is a not-for-profit organization dedicated to the defense and promotion of freedom of the press and of expression in the Americas. It is made up of more than 1,300 print publications from throughout the Western Hemisphere and is based in Miami, Florida. For more information please go to http://www.sipiapa.org.
