Cuba

The energized press scene in Cuba contrasts with the island nation’s restrictive legal framework, which curbs freedom of speech under the guise of protecting the “independence or territorial integrity of the state.”

IAPA rejected a charge leveled at Cuban journalist Henry Constantín Ferreiro for the offense of “usurping legal authority” by acting as a journalist.

Editor Henry Constantín Ferreiro was arrested at the Camagüey province airport along with Sol García Basulto, correspondent for 14ymedio. The two journalists were preparing to take a flight to Havana to cover an awards ceremony in honour of Oswaldo Payá Prize, a former opposition politician.

Human Rights Watch takes a look at Fidel Castro’s record on free expression in Cuba.

Elaine Díaz, a Global Voices contributor and founder of the Cuban news site Periodismo de Barrio, was detained by Cuban authorities along with colleagues while in Baracoa to cover the effects of Hurricane Matthew.

Cuban radio journalist and blogger Maykel González Vivero gave his final show on Radio Sagua on September 3, 2016, after the station terminated his contract due to González’ “collaboration with private media.”

When Internet access is limited by infrastructure, cost, or government censorship, the ability of citizens to learn and share ideas and take charge of their own development is correspondingly limited. In Cuba, that’s where El Paquete comes in.

When Obama arrives in Cuba next week for an historic visit -the first by a sitting U.S. president since 1928- he will find a media landscape that has greatly developed over the past decade.

While the end of the embargo brought with it hope for political liberalisation on the island, as with previous periods of promise in Cuban history cases of repression and censorship of dissident artists were rife in 2015.

About the relaxing of his prison conditions, journalist José Antonio Torres said, “This is not what I was pursuing. My goal is freedom. I am not, and have never been, a spy.”

Reporters Without Borders condemns the arbitrary detention of José Leonel Silva Guerrero, a correspondent for the Hablemos Press news agency. Silva believes that the raid was aimed at intimidating him after he reported on unexplained deaths in Holguín province.

Independent journalists and activists were jailed in Havana as they were about to take part in an art show in Havana’s Revolution Square to protest censorship.

According to the Inter American Press Association, “the initiation of new relations cannot remain in just a political agreement on the exchange of spies, but involve all human rights, which makes necessary the release of journalists and everyone jailed for their way of thinking.”

The IACHR submitted its request on 26 September after being contacted by Elisa Tabakman, who edits Angel Santiesteban-Prats’ website and who had provided the IACHR with details of the psychological torture to which he has been subjected.

The National Revolutionary Police have arrested and threatened independent journalist Bernardo Arévalo for the second time in a less than month, this time as he was travelling to the northern province of Matanzas.

Bernardo Arévalo Padrón, an independent journalist based in Cienfuegos, said police pressured him to leave Cuba when they arrested him on 6 September because of his reporting for the opposition newspaper El Cubano Libre, de Hoy.