Spotlight on Cuba: Crackdown on Dissidents

Chronology of Events - October 2006

October 31: A global press advocacy group is deploring attacks by China, Cuba and Gambia against independent online journalists who use the Internet to transmit news about their countries to readers around the world. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) said governments in such countries as Cuba severely restrict their citizens from access to Internet outlets.  But the Cuban Internet site, CubaNet, for example, has provided Cuban journalists with "unprecedented global reach," said the CPJ. In 2003, the CPJ said, Cuban authorities cracked down on Cuban journalists who used telephones, fax machines and occasional Internet connections to send local news and commentary to Web sites in the United States and Spain.  Some 23 of the 24 journalists now jailed in Cuba were contributors to US or European Web sites, said the CPJ. (Washington File, 31/10/06)

October 29: The Ladies in White, wives and relatives of Cuban political prisoners, petitioned the heads of State and Government attending the Ibero-American Summit to be held November 3-5 in Uruguay, to intercede for the "immediate and unconditional" release of their incarcerated relatives in Cuba. (EFE, 29/10/06)

October 27: Cuban authorities released a pro-democracy activist who had been imprisoned since July 2005 after taking part in a rally outside the French Embassy in Havana, dissident organizations said. The outlawed Assembly to Promote Civil Society said in a statement that Ricardo Medina Salabarria, a member of that organization, received notice that he was being released and was subsequently taken to his home by a government official. Medina was among a score of dissidents arrested during a July 22, 2005 rally to demand the release of political prisoners. With his release, seven of those detainees remain behind bars, according to the Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN). That demonstration was held a week after several opponents of the island's Communist regime were arrested - six of whom remain in prison - following a ceremony commemorating Cuba's deadly sinking of a tugboat packed with fleeing refugees. Thirty-seven would-be migrants to the United States died in that 1994 tragedy.  CCDHRN leader Elizardo Sanchez told EFE that the people detained in the two demonstrations never had formal charges filed against them and are in a "type of (legal) limbo." (EFE, 27/10/06) 

October 23: New countries have moved ahead of some Western democracies in the fifth annual Reporters Without Borders Worldwide Press Freedom Index, while the most repressive countries are still the same ones. “Unfortunately nothing has changed in the countries that are the worst predators of press freedom,” the organisation said, “and journalists in North Korea, Eritrea, Turkmenistan, Cuba, Burma and China are still risking their life or imprisonment for trying to keep us informed. These situations are extremely serious and it is urgent that leaders of these countries accept criticism and stop routinely cracking down on the media so harshly. (RWB Press Release, 23/10/06)

October 16: The Ladies in White, made up of relatives of imprisoned Cuban dissidents, denounced the authorities in Havana for not allowing their representatives to travel to New York to receive a human rights prize. About 20 members of the movement met in the home of the group's spokeswoman, Laura Pollan, just a few hours before the Human Rights 2006 prize award ceremony, sponsored by the organization Human Rights First, was due to begin in New York. Pollan said that she and Miriam Leyva, one of the founders of the Ladies in White, had followed the proper travel procedures with the Cuban authorities to make a trip to the United States, and she lamented the Havana regime's lack of response to their requests. (EFE, 16/10/06)

October 16: Despite the temporary transfer of governmental power in Cuba on July 31, the Cuban government continues to subject independent journalists in the Caribbean nation to "constant harassment," says a human rights official for the Organization of American States (OAS). In an October 12 quarterly report on the state of freedom of expression in the Americas, the OAS official, Ignacio Álvarez, reiterated his concern over the situation of journalists in Cuba who have been imprisoned or face other forms of repression from the Cuban dictatorship. Álvarez, the OAS "special rapporteur" for freedom of expression in the Americas, said that from the most recent period reported -- July 1 to September 30 -- independent journalists in Cuba were "arbitrarily and repeatedly imprisoned, and were physically attacked and threatened by agents" of the Cuban government. The OAS official said that he has not "perceived any change in the situation of total lack of respect for freedom of thought and expression in Cuba" since the change in power in Cuba.  Álvarez once again urged the Cuban government to release imprisoned journalists and "to respect the right of all Cubans to freedom of thought and expression." (Washington File, 16/10/06)

October 12: After attending the opening ceremony of the Congress of Independent Libraries, non-violent opposition activists Nancy Suárez and her husband, Orestes Suárez Torres, were brutally beaten up by a team from the Rapid Response Brigades just outside the city of Santa Clara. Members of a Brigade forced the oppositionists into a taxi and viciously assaulted them. (Cubanet, 12/10/06)

October 11: Cuban dissident Marta Beatriz Roque, who is heading a meeting of indepedent libraries considered to be illegal in Cuba, said that she will continue with the project despite an incident that occurred on the first day of the event. The congress began on October 10 with the participation of 152 independent libraries from all over the communist island, Roque told the press. Roque, who is the head of the Assembly to Promote Civil Society, said that during the first day of the congress an incident was registered in an independent library in Santa Clara province when government supporters prevented a group of librarians from meeting. Supporters of Cuba's Communist government, which seeks to control what people read, sometimes form groups or "mobs" to harass opponents of the 47-year-old regime. Dissidents say the gangs are encouraged by the government, and often include government agents. In homes in the central province of Cienfuegos, Camaguey in the east and Havana discussions of library issues were being held with the participation of about 20 people. "We're ready to continue with the congress until the end," said Roque, but she could not or would not specify the number of people who might be participating in the activities. (EFE, 11/10/06)

October 10: Approximately 300 Fidel Castro supporters gathered for a public “act of repudiation” that prevented the opening ceremony for a congress of independent libraries in Santa Clara. "Since early in the morning, some 300 individuals have been impeding access to the house of Noelia Rodríguez, in the José Martí neighborhood, and they did not let us get there," said librarian Idalberto González Gómez. (AFP, 11/10/06)

October 2: Criticism of Cuba and Venezuela over freedom of expression there and of Mexico for a decrease in security for reporters are the focus of the annual meeting of the Inter American Press Association, which began in Mexico City. The opening ceremony of the 62nd IAPA general assembly was presided over by Mexican President Vicente Fox, IAPA chief Diana Daniels of The Washington Post Company and the president and director general of the Mexican daily El Universal, Juan Francisco Ealy Ortiz, all of whom are on the host committee. In an analysis of the regional journalism panorama, Daniels said that "big question marks still remain concerning Cuba and Venezuela" and she called for attention to be paid to the circumstances of "the 24 independent journalists imprisoned" on the Communist island. She said that those professionals are "true heroes of freedom of expression who remain locked up for daring to exercise their rights." "We will continue our struggle until the last journalist (in Cuba) is freed" and all of them are allowed to exercise their basic human rights, Daniels said. (EFE, 2/10/06) 

October 1: In a report presented during its 62nd General Assembly in Mexico, the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) maintains that government control over the exercise of journalism in Cuba "has clearly intensified" following Fidel Castro’s temporary transfer of power to his brother Raúl. The organization elaborates that censorship is also practiced through "(…) acts of repression against independent journalists, mistreatment of jailed reporters and very strict government surveillance." (AP, 1/10/06)

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