Thursday, July 01, 2010

Media persecution in Cuba

Reading Amnesty International's press release about intimidation of journalists raises two interesting questions.

First, this alone isn't news, and is worded as if the state "has created" a climate of fear somehow in recent years, as opposed to having constructed one since 1959.

Second, the fact that independent journalists exist in Cuba is newsworthy, even if it is to highlight how they are persecuted.  But it points to the need for an analysis (and maybe one already exists) of independent journalism in Cuba.  Who is their audience?  To what degree does the average Cuban have access to their work, or even know that they exist?  Are they entirely online?

39 comments:

leftside 12:27 PM  

Amnesty's press release says:

The Cuban government has sought to justify its failure to protect human rights by pointing to the negative effects of the embargo imposed by the US.

"It is clear that the US embargo has had a negative impact on the country but it is frankly a lame excuse for violating the rights of the Cuban people," said Kerrie Howard."


Well, it would be lame if the embargo were the "excuse" Cubans gave for having jailed 75 people in 2003 (53 still in prison that AI calls prisoners of conscience). But Cubans have been quite clear - as is the legal case against the 75. The issue is nto speech, but the 75 people's contacts with US Diplomats at the US Intersts Section, which included training, organizing and providing materials and resources.

No one denies these facts. The evidence of meetings and materials (fax machines, shortwave radios, ect.) are not disputed. The only question is whether you think it should be legal to work in cooperation with an enemy Government like the US, who spends hundreds of millions of dollars on subversion as part of a program with the clear aim of regime change. After the US passed the law authorizing the funding on the island, Cuba passed a law making it illegal to participate. Simple as that. Otherwise, you would a perverse incentive for Cubans to quit their jobs to become "independent journalists" (or whatever the US calls them) - making a fine living repeating the lies the US wants to hear.

Let me ask anyone who disagrees: Would the US permit me or you to be part of a Cuban program promoting regime change on US soil? Of course not.

leftside 12:29 PM  

And Cuba has never laid a hand on the US or any of our citizens. The US, on the other hand, has a history or violence and subversion on the island a mile long. A lot of spilt blood too... If there is ever justification for a country to limit the actions of a foreign government on your soil it is with Americans on Cuban soil.

leftside 6:17 PM  

In case anyone's interested, here is some more information on what people like to refer to as "independent journalists."

http://www.greenleft.org.au/node/39601

In fact, the term could not be more off base and is an insult to all real journalists in Cuba and elsewhere. Are you independent if you receive your renumeration from the US Government and appear on US propoganda channels? I guess so...

Is a BBC or PBS reporter non-independent because they work for a State run enterprise?

Anonymous,  9:08 AM  

The truth is Castro's tyranny has never allowed the free exchange of ideas. Nor will it ever. This summarized best by Fidel when he said words to the effect, "Within the revolution everything, outside nothing." The state will decide who is "socially dangerous." Who has ties to counter-revolutionaries. Who has received help from the US. This has gone on in times of maximum tension (1959-62) and defies whatever approach taken by US presidents (e.g. Jimmy Carter). So, let's be clear. Leftside is defending the censorship of courageous individuals who merely presume to act on their basic human rights. The freedom of the press and other political and civil rights are part of the UN Declaration that Cuba's govt. signed and has never lived up to. Apologists aside, does anyone believe the fifty year old unilateral US embargo is a threat to overthrow the regime? Is Obama secretly gathering an army of exiles? A lame excuse, indeed.

Anonymous,  9:52 AM  

To write on the internet with your real name and criticize the government is a real challenge if you live in Cuba. When I published my first article, I knew I would be in the spotlight of the Department of State Security. The challenges had begun. The first challenge, to put up with the political police intruding into my private life. The second, to ignore the control they tried to exert over my actions.
The third, the exposure of my family. For me, these three challenges are the most important.
Publishing my work under my full name on the internet turned me into a public dissident in the eyes of the Cuban regime. From that moment on I became a “CR,” the two letters by which State Security identifies dissidents and independent journalists, and which stand for “counterrevolutionary.”

Read on leftside…

http://leyesdelaritzaen.wordpress.com/
page/10/

leftside 2:06 PM  

So, let's be clear. Leftside is defending the censorship of courageous individuals who merely presume to act on their basic human rights.

Let me be clear. I am not defending censorship or any violation of anyone's human rights. If there is someone in jail in Cuba for just their writings or speech, I would defend them. But I've researched many, if not most of the cases of the 53 who AI cites as prisoners of conscience. I've found they all participated with the US Government and its illegal plans (and most were compensated in some way).

And anon #2, I "read on" and I found an oppositionist Cuban blog post who's next few paragraphs were about what she "IMAGINES" the Cuban state has done to spy on her. How she IMAGINES they spoke to her friends and classmates. She admits to paranoia. Yet, she has never been arrested for her writings.

Meanwhile, the biggest censor in the world (by far) is the market and corporations. And the most egregious human rights violations in Latin America are taking place in Colombia, Honduras and Mexico. AI came out with a report on Colombia and even an open letter to the Presidential candidates, yet never once mentioned General Santos' abysmal human rights record.

Anonymous,  3:12 PM  

Leftside,

You must have a tortured sense of English grammar. There was nothing imaginary about the following portion of Laritza's first hand experience. Read it again. You don't have to be arrested in order to to be censored.

"The first time State Security contacted me, they did it through my father. He was told that I was meeting with “worms” (those hostile to the revolution), writing for a “counterrevolutiony” website, and that if I didn’t stop, I could go to prison. My father was a veteran of the Rebel Army in the Sierra Maestra, a retired officer of the Armed Forces, and is currently a member of the Association of Combatants. In a nutshell, he is faithful to the revolution.

You can imagine what happened next. Yet I stood on my rights and demanded that they “ensure” that they would not intrude on my family. I let them know that I was an adult, responsible for my own actions, and that I alone should bear the consequences. Nevertheless, they summoned my husband through the sector or police chief in charge of the neighborhood."

Anonymous,  3:35 PM  

Heberto Padilla

http://www.nytimes.com/2000/09/28/
arts/heberto-padilla-68-cuban-poet-is-dead.html?pagewanted=print

Boli-Nica 5:59 PM  

Leftside your retro-Stalinism is both hilarious and pathetic. It is also scary because there are people who buy into those fairytales who have an impact on actual lives, like Cuba's government.

Uncritically reciting the party line of a Communist regime is really, really idiotic. Claiming you do so because of your own "research" is truly pathetic.

Castro's regime leaves little ground for any nuance. It has institutionalized its own version of a Eastern European Soviet-Satellite state from the 50's to mid 70's. In other words it is a one-party state, whose official behaviorn towards civil society comes straight out of orthodox Brezhnev-era Marxist-Leninism. And it has the same type of repressive institutions like the Stasi-inspired Directorate of State Security, to recreate the type of paranoia and fear that existed in the totalitarian tyrannies of Eastern Europe.

Cuba's very system is repressive by nature, and to defend or justify it is sick. There is no excuse.

Justin Delacour 6:31 PM  

Leftside your retro-Stalinism is both hilarious and pathetic.

Why is it, Boli-Nica, that whenever you don't like what someone on the Left says, you call that person a "Stalinist"? Has it occurred to you that you come off as a rather crass idealogue whenever you resort to such manichaean descriptions?

Boli-Nica 9:09 PM  



Why is it, Boli-Nica, that whenever you don't like what someone on the Left says, you call that person a "Stalinist"? Has it occurred to you that you come off as a rather crass idealogue whenever you resort to such manichaean descriptions?


LMAO....this coming from someone as objective and open minded as you?

and its hard to deny that leftside's almost verbatim repeating of Granma's party line is pretty similar in spirit and tone to how Western CP's, CP Publications, and fellow travellers used to faithfully repeat the official Stalinist line of the moment.

It gets downright gross when Leftside uses the same regime justifications of jailing the dissidents because they got a fax machine from the USIS. In essence saying they are traitors or common criminals, much as the Soviets used to call Sakharov or any of the dissidents.

But I guess, Leftside can make this kind of sick arguments, and still be considered a "thoughtful" leftist under Delacour logic.

Justin Delacour 11:23 PM  

Boli-Nica:

It might help you to recognize that it's possible to disagree with a person without crassly denouncing that person in the most polemical and zealous manner.

Anonymous,  4:22 AM  

Crass...no, not at all. Boli-Nica is describing the communist fellow traveler trope as it has existed since the 1920s and 1930s. If the shoe fits..

Justin, no rational person can deny that Cuba is a major violator of political and civil rights as defined by the international community. It has been thus since 1959. That leftside tries to shift the burden of proof and cites his own research is comical. Likewise when a supposedly disinterested academic (you) pretends to say the anticommunist is namecalling is ridiculous. What is next show trials? When the records of the Cuban state security are finally released, you will all be exposed for what the Castro tyranny really thinks of you. Useful idiocy.

Justin Delacour 6:34 PM  

Justin, no rational person can deny that Cuba is a major violator of political and civil rights as defined by the international community.

That's not even the issue I'm addressing. The issue I'm addressing is whether it is appropriate for Boli-Nica to call someone a "Stalinist" simply because that person has a different viewpoint than his own. I don't consider it appropriate. I consider it crass. And I suspect I'm not alone in feeling that way.

Anonymous,  9:21 PM  

Justin calling someone crass is like Hannibal Lecter advocating a vegan diet.

Boli-Nica 11:06 PM  

LOL..Justin-he-who-continually-refers-to-Boz-as-a-hack-among-other-instances-of-serial-name-calling- now says I'm crass.

It is one thing to argue with reasonable people - left, right or center. But, the further you move to the fringes, the nuttier people get.

On the left-right dial, Leftside is more to the left than the Teabaggers are to the right. And the tea party types are full of crackpots.

And on the fringe, extremist ideologues like leftside, parroting long-discredited views deserve to be called out for what they are. From Leftside's rants, it is clear he would feel comfortable defending the Moscow Show Trials and trashing Trotsky.

I mean its clear dude is way over the top.

Justin Delacour 11:14 PM  
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Justin Delacour 12:27 AM  
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Justin Delacour 12:57 AM  
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Justin Delacour 1:20 AM  
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Justin Delacour 1:37 AM  
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Justin Delacour 1:39 AM  
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Justin Delacour 1:43 AM  
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Justin Delacour 2:34 AM  
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Justin Delacour 2:54 AM  
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Justin Delacour 3:31 AM  
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Justin Delacour 3:52 AM  

Justin calling someone crass is like Hannibal Lecter advocating a vegan diet.

If I were really so crass, I would hide behind an anonymous identity like you do.

Justin Delacour 12:26 PM  

LOL..Justin-he-who-continually-refers-to-Boz-as-a-hack-among-other-instances-of-serial-name-calling- now says I'm crass.

Supposing it were true that I was so annoyed by Boz that I was often crass with him, it would be no less true that to constantly call people with whom you disagree "Stalinist" is also crass.

Besides that, Boz has not allowed commenting on his blog for over two years now, so I'd say you're grasping on this one.

Justin Delacour 12:39 PM  

It is one thing to argue with reasonable people - left, right or center. But, the further you move to the fringes, the nuttier people get.

Uh, no, Boli-Nica, you don't just attack people on the so-called "fringe." You even had the gall to call Steve Ellner a "Stalinist." There is quite an ugly pattern here.

Boli-Nica 6:26 PM  


Uh, no, Boli-Nica, you don't just attack people on the so-called "fringe." You even had the gall to call Steve Ellner a "Stalinist." There is quite an ugly pattern here.


hey I resent that!
I usually preface Stalnism with some other term, like "neo"or "retro".

Anyways, anyone who writes for Z magazine is pretty much on the fringe.

Justin Delacour 8:29 PM  

Anyways, anyone who writes for Z magazine is pretty much on the fringe.

Steve Ellner is a respected historian who is published in both conventional journals and left-wing publications.

But even if we were to accept your questionable definition of what the "fringe" is, that wouldn't justify your outlandish assertions that any such person on the "fringe" who disagrees with you is a "Stalinist." To cavalierly employ such heated rhetoric is irresponsible.

Boli-Nica 10:37 PM  


But even if we were to accept your questionable definition of what the "fringe" is, that wouldn't justify your outlandish assertions that any such person on the "fringe" who disagrees with you is a "Stalinist." To cavalierly employ such heated rhetoric is irresponsible.


hahahahahahahahahahahaha

While its easy to be slightly hypocritical online, you really take it to the limit. You can really turn on a dime - from the angry and indignant hard-leftist, trashing opponents to the pompous windbag sanctimoniously lecturing everyone who acts....well like you do sometimes....

Justin Delacour 12:59 AM  

Say what you will, Boli-Nica, but I would never go so far out on a limb as to cavalierly use terms like "Stalinist" in reference to a person with whom I simply disagree.

For you to call Steve Ellner a "Stalinist" is every bit as slanderous as it would be for me to call you a "Hitlerite."

Boli-Nica 1:41 AM  

Lets take this back to basics - Cuba's Constitution says the following

[n]one of the freedoms which are recognized for citizens can be exercised contrary to what is established in the Constitution and law, or contrary to the existence and objectives of the socialist state, or contrary to the decision of the Cuban people to build socialism and communism.

On its face, the document that enunciates the basic rights and responsibilites of the citizenry of the Cuban Nation-State, heavily curtails free speech.

As Amnesty says on top of the basic restriction of speech -

The Penal code specifies a range of vague criminal charges that can also be used to stifle dissent, such as "social dangerousness", "enemy propaganda", "contempt of authority", "resistance", "defamation of national institutions" and "clandestine printing".



In practice, this maze of restrictions and laws in single-party rule results in a situation that Amnesty describes -

With a judiciary that is neither independent, nor impartial, critics of the government find that an unlimited range of acts can be interpreted as criminal and end up facing trials that are often summary and unfair.

It is this situation under single party rule that Leftside defends blindly. A country where punitive laws, covering wide types of behavior, are enforced by a repressive state apparatus.

Leftside continues to repeat all sorts of absurd excuses and justifications - many of them straight out of Granma. I mean, its clear that the Cuban regimes very underpinnings (think "Constitution") are repressive and undemocratic in theory and in practice.

It is Leftsides continuous repeating of this kind of nonense that opens him up to being called out. comparing him to 1930's Stalinists seems pretty spot-on.

leftside 8:25 PM  

Too bad I missed all this.

Boli, more than name-calling, what offends me is that you seem unwilling to engage the facts and claims I've presented. Instead you seem interested in erecting a straw man to fit your sterotypes.

Again, if you can show me ANYONE in prison for their writings or speech, I will back them and denounce the repression. However, I have actually read the evidence against the folks Amnesty considers Prisoners of Conscience (soon to be released) and found they were associating with and doing the work of the US Government. This simply can not be tolerated while the US maintains a large budget for regime change operations on the island. Again, the US maintains the same policy against associating with Cuban diplomats, or Hamas diplomats, or anyone else we consider a threat. Fact is, the US has been and continues to be a threat to Cuban national security. If the US drops its regime change policy I will be the first to call on Cuba to make substantial reforms to their laws in this area.

The Cuban people have made a choice for socialism, like it or not Boli. They reaffirmed it in a 2002 referendum whereby the vast majority of people (9 million) voted in support of the notion that socialism is irrevocable (after marches of several million people in the streets). This was in direct response to the US backed Varela project, a signature campaign that sought to change the socialist oreintation of the Constitution (and got very little support, despite President Carter backing it on live national Cuban television).

You and Amnesty can complain all you want about the laws on the books in Cuba. Even I may disagree with some. But the fact that the only people in jail they can find to cite as repressed all had contacts with the US Government, should tell you something. Either the laws are not as bad as you think, or they are effectively not being enforced, or there is really very little dissent in Cuba. Which one do you choose. I think it is a combination of all 3.

Anonymous,  11:07 AM  

Saddam Hussein, General Franco and Anasasio Somoza also won plebiscites by similar margins. Gimme a break, Lefty.

Boli-Nica 8:00 PM  

Leftside the fact remains that Cuba's regime is a dictatorship, which violates the fundamental rights of its citizens, imprisoning them for overt dissent. The overall effect is a climate of fear and silence. That is the conclusion reached by both Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch. Hardly right wing organizations - and actually criticized for focusing too much on right wing regimes.

Who cares if dissidents get a fax machine from the U.S.I.S.?

If you apply that same criteria to the Mothers of the Disapeared or even the Disapeared in Argentina, you can justify the military's
position. Well some of the imprisoned did have contact with foreign powers at war with the Argentinian State. Maybe they got a fax machine from Sweden. Hey the laws were on the books according to Videla.

Boli-Nica 8:32 PM  

Leftside also conveniently forgets that Castro's 50 years in power. The regime has around 50 political prisoners it may fee now, but thats the tip of the iceberg of half a century of communism.

FACTS LEFTSIDE -

hundreds (if not thousands) of summary executions result of kangaroo Courts. If some of them were Batista soldiers doesn't matter. That is the same as the Argentinian Junta defending summary executions of Montoneros. Even evil people deserve a fair trial. And the government executed people in its own ranks

10's of thousands of persons jailed for some form of opposition, or for being vaguely "counterrevolutionary" or having long hair.

thousands tortured in jail - as recounted by Armando Valladares among others.

hundreds of thousands driven to exile.

That is a consistent pattern of human rights violations by the same government. Even if they don't kill people now - or send thousands to re-education camps, its still the SAME government, led by the same party, and same old dictator.

leftside 2:46 PM  

Boli, you simply are reciting right-wing Cuban talking points, hardly anything backed up by any real FACTS.

No was was jailed for their long hair in Cuba. No one.

No one was given prison sentences JUST for protesting. Remember during the 1960s and 1970s the CIA was backing all sorts counter-revolutionary groups, who were part of sabotage (terrorist) operations. These are the people who were jailed.

There have been no credible reports of real torture in Cuban jails. Compare that to the region and they have quite a good record.

The only people executed after the Revolution were murderers. And no one really disputes that they were guilty. Plenty of evidence on the deaths of tens of thousands Cubans under Batista was available. The Cuban people demanded justice by an overwhelming majority. Frankly, Fidel was noted for having argued against the executions, but the people hungered for it.

And you can't compare people who were kidnapped off the streets of Argentina, tortured and executed without a trace to the transparent process Cuban murderers and collaborators faced. And you can't compare torturing and executing someone for alleged foreign ties, versus having a trial and jailing them (and now releasing them well early)

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