Cuba

WHEREAS for more than half a century the Cuban government has not ceased its monitoring, control and repression of the independent press and those journalists who do not follow official directives WHEREAS independent journalist Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias is in prison since September 2012, still without trial and on a hunger strike, and Amnesty International considers him to be a prisoner of conscience WHEREAS activist Antonio G. Rodiles, director of Estado de Sats, an independent discussion forum, was jailed in November 2012 for 19 days and released thanks to an international campaign WHEREAS The Inter-American Commission on Human Rights in November 2012 granted precautionary measures to Yoani Sánchez, who reported being in a situation of danger after having posted several reports on the Internet about the state of human rights in Cuba WHEREAS independent Cuban journalist Roberto de Jesús Guerra, director of the news agency Hablemos Press, was violently arrested in November by security agents in civilian clothes and released shortly afterwards WHEREAS the Cuban Human Rights and National Reconciliation Commission recorded that in February alone there were 504 arrests for political reasons, a figure that is close to the 2012 average of 550 a month WHEREAS prizewinning author and blogger Ángel Santiesteban, the winner of the 2006 Casa de las Américas Award, has just been sent to the Valle Grande prison to serve a five-year term for alleged common crimes, the result of a trial riddled with irregularities WHEREAS the government announced that the submarine cable has been operative since 2012 and there will be growth in access by the people to the Internet, which continues to be a privilege of just a few WHEREAS news agencies continue to be subjected to monitoring and reprisals by the government and consequently are required to practice self-censorship WHEREAS the intent to limit or prevent access by the people to alternative information channels remains unchanged WHEREAS contractor Allan Gross, 62, is serving a 15-year prison sentence after being charged with having committed “crimes against State Security” and several attempts to have him released have failed WHEREAS Principle 1 of the Declaration of Chapultepec states “No people or society can be free without freedom of expression and of the press. The exercise of this freedom is not something authorities grant, it is an inalienable right of the people” THE IAPA MIDYEAR MEETING RESOLVES to call for an end to detentions for a few days or hours as a way of silencing the voices of independent journalists to call for the suspension of acts of monitoring, control and repression of journalists to call for the immediate release of independent journalist Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias, in prison since September 2012, still without trial and on a hunger strike to call for the immediate release of author and blogger Ángel Santiesteban, who is serving a five-year prison sentence for alleged common crimes to call for the immediate release of contractor Allan Gross, who is serving a 15-year prison sentence to condemn the permanent government control of the Internet and the lack of willingness of the government to allow greater access to it by the people to call on the Cuban government to allow informational plurality through the existence of news media with points of view different to the official one to call on the Cuban authorities to put an end to the pressures on accredited foreign correspondents in Cuba and allow them to report freely to condemn the Cuban government for the increase in arrests of dissidents reaching unprecedented numbers as in the month of February in which 504 detentions were recorded.