Whether by coincidence or coordination, a crackdown on Cuba's independent journalists seems to be underway, based on various recent reports. As I have written, for example, here and here, the Castro dictatorship's secret police recently has put the squeeze on those Cubans committed to breaking the regime's attempted blockade on information about what is happening on the island. Throw in their suspected politics — they are for freedom and against tyranny — and the police have all they need to make their move.
The latest to be targeted is independent journalist Ainí Martín Valero, who had the audacity, the nerve, the journalistic resourcefulness to report on the murder of a Spanish priest in Havana — before the dictatorship had issued an official press release about the slaying.
To make its point, the dictatorship sent over a couple of its goons in a hapless attempt to convince Martín that it is the government, not her, who gets to decide when a story gets published.
Ha, ha, said Martín, who lives in the Havana neighborhood where the priest was killed.
"I had to clarify again for them about my role as independent journalist who has nothing to do with the government press organs," Martín said.
This episode again illustrates how vital Cuba's independent journalists are to the struggle for liberty, and not just because they may share the same politics as those they cover. Independent journalists matter because they are on the front lines of that struggle, going mano-a-mano with those who try to censor them and with those who pull their strings, in order to reveal the true failings and the true horrors of life in Cuba today.
The dictatorship knows the risks they pose, so it is no coincidence that journalists are targeted for repression. We don't have to take the goons, all the way up to the Castro brothers, at their word. Just pay attention to what they do, and you will understand how afraid they are of Ainí Martín Valero and other independent journalists on the beat.
Read my 2006 interview with Martí, here.
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