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Reporters Without Borders.
December 17, 2002.
A report on repression of the independent Cuban media
As the European Parliament today awarded the Sakharov Prize for human rights
to Cuban dissident Osvaldo Paya, Reporters Without Borders published a report
condemning the complete absence of press freedom in Cuba.
It called on the European Union (EU) to make Cuban membership of the Cotonou
Agreement* conditional on the Cuban government ending its media monopoly,
legalising independent news agencies and releasing four journalists from prison.
It also called on the EU "to give effective support" to independent
Cuban journalists. The report - "Cuba, where news is the exclusive reserve
of the state" - describes prison conditions for the four journalists : bad
food, harassment, humiliating treatment and material filth. The longest-held
prisoner, Bernardo Arévalo Padrón (photo), was arrested in 1997
and has just been diagnosed with leptospirosis, which is spread by rats. He
should have been freed on parole in October 2000, but the government refuses to
release him "because he has not cooperated in his re-education programme."
The Cuban constitution decrees that the government has a monopoly of the
media. Like Arévalo Padrón, about 100 independent journalists,
grouped in 20 or so agencies that the authorities refuse to recognise, try
anyway to exercise their right to inform the public. Because they are censored
in their own country, they publish their articles in the foreign press or on the
Internet, which are not readily available in Cuba.
The report details the constant harassment the journalists are subjected to,
including arrests, police summonses, pressure on their families and visits to
their homes. They are closely watched by the regime's police. One was even
called in for questioning after a neighbour told the authorities she heard him
shouting criticism of the government inside his house. About 50 journalists have
gone into exile abroad since 1995.
"Despite this intimidation, independent journalists say their
activities are fairly tolerated these days," the report says, but concludes
that in reality this is not so. It says he government's repression has achieved
its goal of keeping independent journalists this side of the "red line,"
which is putting out unauthorised news to the general population."
* President Fidel Castro said on 8 December that Cuba would apply to join
the Agreement, which allows 77 African, Caribbean and Pacific (ACP) countries to
receive economic aid and better trade terms from member-states of the European
Union.
Read the report, "Cuba,
where news is the exclusive reserve of the State"
Reporters Without Borders defends imprisoned journalists and press freedom
throughout the world, as well as the right to inform the public and to be
informed, in accordance with Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights. Reporters Without Borders has nine national sections (in Austria,
Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, and the United
Kingdom), representatives in Abidjan, Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Istanbul, Montreal,
Moscow, Nairobi, New York, Tokyo and Washington and more than a hundred
correspondents worldwide |
