Uncommon Sense

Cuba blogger says she and others are in danger

This is why it is vital to read, and to encourage others to read, Cuba's independent bloggers.

That is is the kind of protection we can provide them.

Laritiza Diversent describes the danger that she and other bloggers face:

The personal freedoms of members of the alternative blogosphere are at risk after the official media publicly accused them of being mercenaries.

On March 22nd, the Granma newspaper (official paper of the Communist Party) published an article titled “Cyberwar: Mercenaries on the Internet”.  A day prior to this publication, the televised documentary series “Cuba’s Reasons” used terms such as “cyber-mercenaries” and “cyber-terrorists” to describe the independent bloggers on the island.

Such terms imply very serious accusations.  The penal legislation states that mercenaries and terrorists are perpetrators of serious crimes which attempt to attack State Security.  Sentences for such crimes range from 5 to 30 years in jail.  Meanwhile, Cuba ratified international instruments which oblige punishment for such activities.

Granma affirmed that “through bloggers and social networks like Twitter and Facebook, massive protests and uprisings have been inspired throughout the world”.  According to the TV, bloggers use internet tools to destabilize internal Cuban social order.

Granma also asserted that thousands of “international media specialists have orders to keep a watch on the Twitter messages and blog updates of the mercenary”, referring to Yoani Sanchez, the author of the blog “Generation Y”, which up to this day has been a target of attacks on behalf of state-run media.

The International Convention Against the Recruitment, Utilization, Financing, and Training of Mercenaries defines “mercenary” as a person recruited to engage in combat in an armed conflict or act of concentrated violence in exchange for personal benefit or material payment.  Neither nationals of a specific country or any of its residents can be considered mercenaries under this law.

In 2007, the Cuban government ratified the mentioned Convention, but with its share of reserves.  It declared that it is enough with simple material payment, for whatever length, to consider an activity as “mercenary” and that it will continue applying the definition given by the Penal Code.

According to Cuban law, “mercenary” is someone who, “with the intent of obtaining a payment” joins a “military formation” whose membership is “individuals who are not citizens of the State, and it is there where they intend to act”, and who “collaborate or execute any other act” to achieve the same objective.

“Against Cuba and other countries considered enemies of the United States there is a form of Cyber-War: the fostering of a blogosphere which, although it claims to be ‘independent’ is totally subordinate to the interests of Washington”, Granma stated.

“The Cyber-War is a model of conflict which has appeared on the social scene of new information and communication technologies (NTIC), providing a military context”, the newspaper continued.

Read the rest, here.

Being a journalist and blogger in Cuba

One of my favorite things about blogging about Cuba is that it has given me a chance to advocate on behalf of Cuban independent journalists and bloggers. Hopefully, it has provided them with at least a little bit of protection from the Castro dictatorship. (To read them in Spanish and in English, click on the links on the left sidebar under "Blogs from Cuba.")

As far as I know, none of them are part of my family, but I am proud to call them my fellow Cubans and my fellow journalists.

Yoani Sanchez is the best known of these bloggers, but there are many others, like Iván García of "Iván's File Cabinet," deserving of the same attention and acclaim.

After you read Garcia's post on what it's like to be a journalist in Cuba, reposted below, I think you will agree.

(Be sure to also read his post about the Canaleta prison.)

Photo: AP. (Right) Ricardo González Alfonso in 2002, some months before being detained and sentenced to 20 years in prison. (Left) Luis Cino, also an independent journalist.

To engage in the profession of journalism in Cuba, outside the control of the state, has its dangers.  Not to the extreme of having a hitman show up at your door on a motorcycle and fire a full magazine at you point blank from a .45 caliber pistol, as happens in Mexico or Colombia.

They also don’t put a black hood over you and later dump your mutilated body in a dumpster, as occurred during the 80’s in Honduras, El Salvador, or Guatemala.  No.  For being an independent journalist or a critic of the Castro administration what could happen to you is that you can be thrown behind bars for up to 20 years if the government decides to do so.

The Castros promise many years of jail for those of us who report on our own account.  But to date, there has not been a documented State-sponsored assassination of a reporter, either official or independent.

For being a free lance journalist on the island, authorities can orchestrate an “act of repudiation”, a verbal lynching in which members of the public, instigated by the political police, insult and scream at you with the veins extended on their necks about to explode.

It’s also possible that some unknown person, a supposed “delinquent”, will ambush you and beat you up in the darkness of the night.  Or that the phone in your house will ring incessantly at 3 A.M. and when you answer it, a disguised voice shouts an earful of insults at you. By the way

When you decide to write without official sanction you lose your job, and State Security has the right to threaten you and summon and question you whenever they feel like it, under the guise of having a “friendly chat.”

The phenomenon of Cuban independent journalism was born in the 90’s.  Among its founders are Rolando Cartaya, Indamiro Restano, Rafael Solano, José Rivero, Julio San Francisco, Raúl Rivero, Iria González Rodiles, Ana Luisa López Baeza, Juan Antonio Sánchez, Germán Castro, Tania Quintero, Bernardo Arévalo Padrón, Jorge Olivera, Olance Nogueras, Joaquin Torres, Héctor Peraza, Manuel Vázquez Portal.

On 18 March 2003, Fidel Castro was determined to strike a blow against journalism outside the State. During the early morning hours that day, the political police forces arrested 75 dissidents and journalists. In the black spring, 25 communicators ended up in jail; their only crime was reporting without government permission.

Correspondents such as Raúl Rivero, one of the heavyweights of Cuban journalism and director of the independent agency Cuba Press, was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Thanks to the intervention of the Spanish government, today he is a free man who writes two columns a week for the Spanish edition of the daily newspaper El Mundo.

Right now, 27 journalists languish in the hellish Cuban prisons. One of them is Ricardo González Alfonso, correspondent for Reporters Without Borders, who has not stopped writing in prison. In Spain he has published two books: Bleeding History, a collection of poems, and Men Without Faces, a narrative. Another is Pablo Pacheco, whose written and oral testimony from Canaleta Prison can be read on the blog Voices Behind Bars.

But since 1999, law number 88, or the gag law, has been floating menacingly in the air of the Republic, giving the regime a free hand in deciding when to send someone to the penitentiary. Not a single text by a free Cuban journalist has been written without a measure of fear and paranoia. It’s normal. Because you never know if tonight you will sleep in your own bed or in the bunk of a jail cell of the police or State Security.

At times I have a nightmare. In the solitude of my room, I dream that there is a loud pounding on the door of the house. And some tough, dog-faced guys dressed in olive green take me out of the room without my feet touching the floor, throw me by force into a Russian-made car with military license plates, and take me as a prisoner to an unknown destination.

Not all are hallucinations. Sometimes I dream that the little hands of my seven-year-old daughter, together with her mother, wake me with the good news that the government of General Raúl Castro abolished the absurd laws — Cubans no longer need permission to leave the island, the exiles who wish may return to their homeland, and never again will it be a crime to write a chronicle or opinion piece telling the truth about Cuba and Cubans.

Whenever this happens, I wonder which of these dreams will become a reality first.

Read the original Spanish, here.

My friend goes to Cuba, and all I get ...

... is the this very cool, very exciting, very inspiring story.

 

Today is World Day Against Cyber Censorship

Today is World Day Against Cyber Censorship.

Learn more about this important day and why it's needed, here.

Especially in Cuba.

Journalist group names Cuba an 'Internet enemy'

Reporters Without Borders on Thursday released its list of 12 nations it considers "Internet enemies."

Not surprisingly, Cuba again made the grade.

Among its transgressions, the Castro dictatorship has upped the pressure on dissident bloggers:

In the last few months, the authorities have begun to unfavorably view this dissemination of news that has been outside of their control and to be offended by the increasing popularity of some of these bloggers, such as Yoani Sanchez and her blog, Generacion Y. Voted by Time magazine in 2008 as one of the year’s 100 most influential people, she has been hounded by a genuine defamation campaign on the island. Accused of being a mercenary serving a foreign power, her name has been dragged through the mud by the state media. On November 6 of last year, state security policemen assaulted Yoani Sanchez and blogger Orlando Luis Pardo on the eve of a demonstration. A third blogger, Luis Felipe Rojas, was arrested twice in December 2009 and is being kept under house arrest.

A student named Darío Alejandro Paulino Escobar was expelled from the University of Havana in January 2010 for having created a “polemic” group on the social network Facebook. The group in question contained the minutes of a meeting held by the Union of Young Communists (UYC) (http://www.facebook.com/group.php?v=wall&gid=93444203329). The authorities are now determined to occupy an area that they had previously overlooked: an official association of Cuban bloggers has been created. And possible links between the Cuban government and hackers who are attacking Cuban websites and blogs hosted abroad are under heavy scrutiny.

The judicial arsenal against online criticism remains particularly repressive. Cuban Internet users face up to 20 years in prison if they post what is deemed to be a “counter-revolutionary” article on a foreign-hosted Internet website, and 5 years if they connect illegally to the international network.

Read the whole section on Cuba, here.

Cuban bloggers crack dictatorship's grip on the free press — report

Cuba's independent press remains under siege by the Castro dictatorship, and more than 20 journalists are in jail. But online, the resistance to tyranny is growing stronger on the island.

Committee to Protect Journalists reports on the current state of press freedoms in Cuba:

Cuba was hit hard by the global economic crisis and endured an upheaval in its highest offices, but state-controlled news media delivered superficial and skewed coverage. Human rights conditions, including press freedom, remained at a standstill: Independent journalists faced ongoing harassment, and more than 20 reporters and editors remained in jail. But offering a flicker of hope for freedom of expression on the island, a growing community of independent bloggers maneuvered around legal, economic, and technological limitations to describe everyday experiences and express opinions that challenged the regime’s perspective.

Cuba was one of the 10 Worst Countries to Be a Blogger, according to an April analysis by CPJ. But because the government so harshly represses other media, the Internet has become the one means by which Cubans are able to exercise free expression. The government estimates Internet penetration at 13 percent, although independent estimates are much lower.

Regardless, the Internet in Cuba is extremely slow and expensive, and legal restrictions are among the toughest in the world. An inter-ministry commission has authority to regulate “the information that comes from worldwide information webs,” purportedly to ensure the country’s security and defense. A government agency approves all Internet connections, leaving only foreigners and a handful of intellectuals, high-ranking officials, doctors, and academics with personal access to the Web. Other Cubans went online at government-run cybercafés, hotels, embassies, and highly monitored student centers. Cubans were not allowed to purchase consumer electronics, including personal computers, until 2008. Computers remained difficult to find.

For all those difficulties, Cuba became home to a small but vibrant blogging community, one that CPJ described in a September special report, “Chronicling Cuba, Bloggers Offer Fresh Hope.” CPJ found that at least 25 independent, journalistic, and regularly updated blogs were being produced by Cuban writers in 2009. Most bloggers interviewed by CPJ were under age 35 and defined themselves as part of the post-revolutionary youth. Like the independent press, they reported on everyday experiences, pinpointing food shortages and problems in education, housing, and health.

Bloggers wrote at home, sometimes on computers cobbled together from black-market parts. Although they occasionally posted directly to their blogs from island cybercafés, they more generally e-mailed their information to friends living abroad who then posted their entries. Bloggers, frequently unable to read their own posts online, were aware that their Internet audience was predominantly overseas. So they saved their work to CDs that were distributed to independent libraries on the island, or they printed hard copies of their entries and bound them into impromptu publications that were passed from hand to hand.

Although it might seem surprising, Cubans have a long tradition in online journalism. The roots of online Cuban journalism can be found in the independent press movement that flourished from the mid-1990s into this decade. Using basic journalistic tools for their reporting, these independent reporters have long made a practice of phoning, faxing, or e-mailing their stories to foreign-based news Web sites. But the new generation of bloggers differed from their predecessors in the independent press movement, most of whom were opposition activists with strong political views. Bloggers generally avoided links to dissident groups, and tended not to criticize the Castro regime directly, CPJ research showed. As a consequence—or perhaps due to a generational disconnect between the young bloggers and the country’s aging leaders—authorities have not cracked down as hard on the blogging community as they did on the independent press. Twenty-nine independent journalists were jailed in a massive 2003 crackdown on dissent; most of them remained in prison in 2009

The whole thing, here, is worth your time.

From behind the bars of the Castro gulag, a father's pride

Félix Navarro and his daughter and wife

More Cuban political prisoners are blogging from behind the bars of the Castro gulag, including Félix Navarro Rodríguez.

Navarro, imprisoned since the "black spring" of 2003, is very proud of his daughter Sahili, who was recently expelled from college after authorities learned she had taken a journalism course offered by the U.S. Interest Section in Havana.

It turns out, she is just following in the family tradition:

Representatives of the totalitarian and exclusive communist government which controls the fate of our people appeared at my home in Perico, Matanzas, on Tuesday January 12, to advise my daughter, Sahili Navarro Alvarez, that she would be permanently expelled from her fourth year of law school at the university because, months before, she took a journalism course in the Office of Interests and, as a principal requirement of Cuban universities, they train only young future professional revolutionaries.

A trial by fire for Sahili, who was beaten in the street by fanatic cheerleaders on April 26, along with six other Women in White opposite the Perico bus station. That order, against anyone in the 21st century, sent a clear message to the Cuban people and to the world, that the political system which rules in our country is more discriminatory and exclusive than the one which ruled in South Africa during apartheid and that it demands humiliation or submission if one wants to accomplish anything, because universities and liberties in Cuba are fief and chaplaincy of the communist party.

In addition, it is a message to whoever of us want to live with the dignity necessary to emigrate, to live either in glorious exile or in prison. But for the communists who give the orders in our country, I say to them from here that the three people in my home were born in this country and that we will continue to live here even if the only option remaining to us is in its slave prisons, but never on our knees. (emphasis added)

Voz tras las rejas ("Voice Through the Bars") used to belong only to political prisoner Pablo Pacheco Ávila, who posted his entries via telephone calls from jail. He has since been joined by other political prisoners at the Canaleta prison in Ciego de Ávila: Pedro Argüelles Morán, Adolfo Fernández Sainz and Navarro.

So now the blog is called Voces tras las rejas — "Voices Through the Bars."

Cuba secret police target bloggers, other activists

Earlier today, I posted Yoani Sanchez's account of a very scary incident during which it again appeared she might be assaulted the Cuban secret police.

Fellow Cuban blogger Orlando Luis Pardo Lazo, writing for AllVoices.com, reports that the incident was just part of a busy day for police, which apparently had orders to target Sanchez and other bloggers:

For unexplained reasons, Cuban security officials suddenly targeted a number of bloggers and activists Friday, arresting some, interrogating others, and giving many concern for their safety.

The one thing all the targeted people have in common was their association with Yoani Sanchez and the Blogger Academy that operates in her Havana home. Sanchez is a popular and controversial blogger who interviewed President Barack ObamaBarack Obama last year.

The arrests sent shock waves through Havana’s artistic and intellectual communities, worried about the consequences for the independent Cuban blogosphere, which during the past year has conquered many spaces for freedom of expression inside Cuba and raised Cuban exile solidarity in hopes of a peaceful transition to a democratic system.

While government officials declined to explain their actions, this much is known: Friday afternoon, residents of the area said they noticed an unusual police presence, along with the motorcycles and unmarked cars typical for state security. At the same time, an improvised festival for the Young Communist League suddenly took shape there. The governmental conference “Cubans Residing Abroad against Blockade and in Defense of National Sovereignty” was also ending Friday, with its 450 Cuban émigrés from 42 countries attending a concert nearby.

Some of those detained said that the authorities seemed to fear that a march was planned, similar to one that took place Nov. 6. On that occasion, young people walked about a half a mile without permission with signs reading, “No More Violence” and “Join Us.”

The first reported arrest was that of Claudio Fuentes Madan, a photographer and teacher. Fuentes Madan later related that was interrogated throughout the day at various locations around the city, and forced to undergo a blood pressure exam at a Havana hospital in the outskirts. He was given no reason for the day-long interrogation; after his release he said that the questions focused on his friends and family.

Silvio Benitez, leader of the outlawed Liberal Party of the Cuban Republic, was also arrested at home, said his wife, and remained in custody the whole day. Benitez has attended the Bloggers’ Academy since its foundation on October 2009. Today he related that he was warned about a supposed protest “provocation” to be held yesterday in El Vedado, in presence of the delegates of the conference for Cubans residing abroad.

Katia Sonia was summoned to an interview and questioned at length about the activities of her and her husband, a Pastor. She is an active member of Women and Mothers Against Repression in Cuba, and another Academy student; upon release she reported that her recent work as a blogger was the focus of her interrogation.

William Retureta, a teenager who also attends the Blogger Academy, declared that in the afternoon he was forced into an unmarked car as he was walking down the street. He was driven randomly around Havana while plainclothes agents threatened him, but ultimately freed at a local police station. Retureta said he was warned to tell his friends to stay away from one of Havana’s most popular area for young people, the intersection of 23rd Street and the historic Avenue of the Presidents, in El Vedado.

Read the whole thing, here.

Cuban blogger writes what he thinks

Iván García

As a professional newspaper journalist for more than 20 years, one of the more rewarding parts of running this blog is that here I am my own editor, my own boss. I pick the topics I want, and I am accountable only to myself and my principles. I welcome feedback, but no one tells me what or how to write.

Neither does anyone tell Cuba-based blogger Iván García what he should write for his blog, La Carpeta de Iván ("Ivan's File Cabinet").

In his most recent post, which has been translated into English, García recalls how when he was writing for another blog, a veteran Cuban journalist advised that he stick to certain topics — more "curve balls," like pieces about Cuban landmarks, and fewer "fast balls," like critiques of the Castro regime — presumably to avoid the attention and scorn of the authorities. In country like Cuba, where there are hundreds, if not thousands imprisoned because they said or acted on what they think, that is serious advice.

García, however, has chosen to be his own editor:

I say what I think and tell it like it is. You have the chance as readers to express disagreement in the comments section. I’m very far from thinking that what I write amounts to any kind of absolute truth. Perhaps I get things wrong. But these opinions about an event, theme, or personality are mine.

I’m nearly 45 years old and at this stage in my life I’m not going to be afraid to defend my perspective. Being imprisoned for many years, which is the prospect held out by Cuba’s laws for all those voicing public dissent, does scare me. I don’t have a vocation to be a martyr. But I’m not going to change my ideas. Even if I end up bricked up in a state security cell or in a dirty Cuban prison block.

Disagreement is healthy. And so is debate about ideas and dialogue with people who think differently. But in Cuba, when someone in the media criticises you or attacks you, be afraid. The message is: ”What goes around comes around”. In other words, shut up or you’re mincemeat.

We know that the beginning of a vigorous offensive on the part of the state apparatus portends further actions. Ranging from acts of repudiation and even threats and humiliations for your family. Or, in an extreme case, detaining you, penalising you, and locking you up in jail.

Writing what he wants. That's how, García concludes, he will be free:

Since I was born, in 1965, I’ve never known what is called democracy. And before I die, I would like to live in a pluralistic society where you as a person aren’t of the slightest interest to the State.  And where, if the powers that be don’t appreciate me, thanks to certain Constitutional laws, I’m not locked up in prison.

I don’t mind who’s in power. They can be communists, liberals, greens, social democrats, right wing, centrists, or left wing. Just so long as they’ve won an election. I ask myself if this is an impossible dream. I don’t think it is. That’s why I write what I think.

Read the whole post, in English or en español.

Silencing a Cuban blogger isn't easy

From the computer of Yoani Sánchez:

Some years ago I read a study by the UN International Labor Organization in which they reported the profession of journalist as the second riskiest in the entire world, only exceeded by test pilots. I don’t know if the investigation included crocodile hunters or bodyguards, but the study was done in the nineties, when there were, as yet, no bloggers.

Being a journalist in Cuba doesn’t entail the risks run by press professionals in other countries. Here they don’t shoot news editors, or kidnap them, instead they poison the profession. Why physically eliminate an individual who writes uncomfortable truths if you can annul them with the red pen of the censor? Why kill them if you have all the tools to tame them? Professional death does not affect the statistics in the case of the frustration of those who—like me—one day tied their destiny to information. He who chooses to dedicate himself to the news on this Island knows that all the media is in the hands of power, call it what you will: the State, the One Party or the Maximum Leader. He knows he will have to say what is convenient and necessary, and that it won’t be sufficient to applaud if it is not done with devotion, with great enthusiasm. In these cases the risk is huge for the conscience.

For more than twenty years there has been a new type of reporter on our Island. The adjective “independent” differentiates them from those who are official. They face other risks, enjoy other opportunities. As you can imagine, many did not take university courses, but learned to relate what the Party press hides, became specialists in denunciation, cultivated the dark side of history. In the spring of 2003 everything that seemed dangerous and risky turned into punishment. Many of them went in prison to serve sentences of ten, fifteen, twenty years. The majority are still behind bars.

We bloggers came later, among other reasons because the technology came to us slowly. I dare say that the authorities did not imagine that citizens would appeal to a global resource to express themselves. The government controls the television studio cameras, the radio station microphones, the pages of the magazines and periodicals located on Island territory, but up there, far from their reach, a satellite network—demonized but essential—offers to those who aim for it, the opportunity to “hang” their opinions in practically unlimited form.

It took them time to understand it, but they are starting to. As you know, to silence a blogger you can’t use the same methods that work to silence so many journalists. No one can fire these impertinents of the web from the editorial board of a daily paper, nor promise them a week in Varadero or a Lada car as compensation, much less entice them with a trip to Eastern Europe. To stop a blogger you must eliminate or intimidate them and this equation has begun to be understood by the State, the Party… the General.