Guillermo Fariñas honored

Reporters Without Borders today honored one of Cuba's best and bravest independent journalists, Guillermo Fariñas, with one of its "Fondation de France" in the cyberdissident category:

Guillermo Fariñas Hernández, Cuba

He is fighting for Cubans right of access to a “free Internet”

Guillermo Fariñas, "El coco", head of the independent news agency Cubanacán Press, began a hunger strike in February 2006 to demand the right for all Cubans to have access to a “fee Internet”. The authorities hospitalised him and put him on a drip to try to end his campaign, which was widely covered in the international media.

After he had spent several months in intensive care suffering from kidney and heart problems, the authorities told Guillermo Fariñas he could have “limited” access to the Internet. He refused, explaining that he could not honourably exercise his profession as a journalist by looking only at news and information which had been filtered by the government.

“El coco” only ended his hunger strike on 31 August after a brush with death and the loss of 15 kilos. He is continuing his work at Cubanacán and has become one of the leading voices among Cuban opposition journalists. He also still keeps the foreign media up to date with human rights violations in his country and in particular passes on information about intimidation and harassment of independent reporters.

Cubanacán, founded in 2003, is the leading news agency of the new generation of Cuban journalists. None of its 17 reporters has the right to use the Internet or fax to send articles abroad. Their reports are mostly filed from public telephones. Since telecommunications charges are very high, the calls are mostly placed by collect.

Internet in Cuba, a network under tight surveillance

The Cuban government uses a variety of tools to ensure the Internet is not used to “counter-revolutionary” ends. First of all, private Internet connections are more or less banned. Cubans wishing to surf the Net or check their emails have to go to public places such as cybercafés, universities, youth computer clubs and so on, where it is easier to keep checks on what they are doing. Then, Cuban police have installed software at all cybercafés and big hotels which sends out an alert as soon as “subversive” key words are entered. The government also depends on self-censorship. In Cuba, one can be sentenced to 20 years in prison for posting a few “counter-revolutionary” articles on foreign websites and to five years simply for going online illegally. Few Internet-users dare to take such a risk to defy state censorship.

Fariñas dedicated his prize to his fellow dissidents.

"This prize is for all the Cuban political prisoners, especially for the independent journalists who are in prison at this moment," Fariñas said.

Read my tribute to Fariñas here.