Cuba

57th General Assembly Washington, DC October 12 – 16, 2001 CUBA The heroism and stubborn persistence of a few dozen independent journalists who confront the regime’s repression every day keep alive the flame of defiance. Independent journalism is conducted illegally, under conditions of repeated harassment and material limitations. It is not possible to communicate directly with the people, because of the iron control of the media, which, faithful to Lenin’s dictates, are considered exclusively “vehicles of propaganda at the service of the state.” Independent journalists communicate indirectly through Internet pages or risky radio broadcasts to other countries. There are about 120 independent journalists, scattered in Havana and the provinces, in about 20 agencies or professional groups. There are frequent losses because of the strength of the repression. But there are also gains, such as Julio César Gálvez, a journalist of Radio Ciudad of Havana and COCO, who recently joined the ranks of independent journalists with all the risks that implies. The Law of Reaffirmation of National Dignity and Sovereignty of 1997, known as the “gag law,” is still in effect. It provides for sentences of three to 10 years in prison for people who collaborate with “enemy news media.” Thus, independent journalist Bernardo Arévalo Padrón remains in prison serving a six-year term in El Diamante jail in Cienfuegos province for “showing contempt for the chief of state” and “enemy propaganda.” The regional vice president of the Free Press Committee in Cuba, Raúl Rivero, made public a few months ago excerpts from a letter from Arévalo Padrón about subhuman conditions in his prison. The jailed journalist said: “Our situation here is unbearable. The heat, overcrowding, the rodents, the humiliation, the lack of drinking water are hard to bear. This concentration camp is a hell. “The bugs roam freely and suck our blood while we sleep, but the saddest and most degrading thing is to see how the military guards use common prisoners in the dirty work of informing on political prisoners and robbing them. “Some young men imprisoned for common crimes sell sexual favors to other inmates for food, sugar, cigarettes or medicine to get high on. So, we are obliged to serve out our sentences as political prisoners under these subhuman conditions.” Arévalo Padrón, 36, is to be freed at exactly 3 p.m. on December 15, 2003, when he completes his sentence for “contempt of the chief of state.” José Orlando González Bridón, an electrical engineer and general secretary of the Confederation of Democratic Workers of Cuba, has been imprisoned in Combinado del Este in Havana since December 15, 2000. He wrote articles for the Web page of Cuba Free Press of Miami. At first González Bridón was accused of “spreading false information,” which could not be proved at trial, but the prosecutor kept charges of “defamation of the institutions, heroes and martyrs of the homeland.” At the beginning of June, the court found that the defendant had “distributed false information to disturb the peace, damage the prestige and credibility of the state, as well as its relations with other states” and sentenced him to two years of prison. It denied a defense appeal to a higher court to overturn the verdict for procedural reasons. The regime has chosen to threaten and detain independent journalists for a few hours, urging them to stop their work. The official reprisals include unjustified delays in permission to immigrate and denials of requests to travel abroad. Five journalists have visas to go to the United States, but official permission has been withheld. The most notorious case of prohibition of travel abroad is that of Raúl Rivero who has been the victim of arbitrary acts and immigration delays for 13 years, preventing him from accepting invitations such as those of the Inter American Press Association and, more recently, the Miami Book Fair. Just a few weeks ago, the immigration authorities again prohibited Rivero from traveling, this time to France to be honored by Reporters Without Borders. In November of 1999, Fidel Castro said on national television that Rivero “will never be allowed to travel outside the country.” The independent press is not allowed to have access to e-mail and the Internet, while the Cuban government maintains more than 300 sites of news media and official institutions. The strict monopoly of the Internet reaches such extremes as the following: For more than a year the journalist and writer Amir Valle published a newsletter on Cuban literature called “Cuban Letters” that suddenly was suspended, because, authorities said, no independent publication is allowed. Valle is not an independent journalist or political dissident. The theatrical apparatus of Cuban totalitarianism, in a triumphalist escalation of political agitation, now has the Internet as its face to the world, and the famous Round Tables as an instrument of its most vigorous expressions. The Round Tables have taken the top place in public information, in the afternoons and at night, forcing the print press to publish long texts of their content. It is a new platform for totalitarian news designed personally by Fidel Castro who often presides and pontificates in the televised sessions. Journalists of the official media have even been reprimanded for publishing a news item before it was “presented” in the afternoon Round Tables. Castro wants to save the scoops for himself. In September the authorities announced the opening of a new television channel for “educational and cultural programming” costing $3.7 million. It is a new forum for propaganda, closed, of course, to any attempt to inform or dissent. In October, Ricardo González Alfonso, president of the Manuel Márquez Sterling Association of Journalists, was warned by two State Security agents not to hold a course in English-language journalism for independent journalists in his home when the country was holding a government-sponsored forum for international journalists.