The Price in Cuba of a Journalism that Reaches More People
By Yusimi Rodriguez
HAVANA TIMES — While tributes to the recently deceased former Cuban president Fidel Castro continue and the European Union drops its Common Position with regard to Cuba, restrictions of freedom of speech and press still exist here.
On Monday November 28, Manuel Guerra and Lisbey Lora, the director and editor of Cimarron de Mayabeque, the newsletter of the Cuban Institute For Freedom Of Expression and The Press (ICLEP), were arrested. Their families didn´t know anything about this until Thursday night. They were unable to visit them as people arrested in their unit could only receive visits seven days after their arrest. Both of them were released on December 5th.
Manuel: I go to Mayabeque four or five times a month to talk to people, to take pictures, to verify information. As the director, I’m charges with verifying everything that is published. I can’t create a newspaper on Mayabeque if I don’t go there.
We began in May and we’ve been arrested on several occasions since June, Lisbey, twice and me three times. We go almost undercover; I normally leave my phone here (Mantilla, Havana). This time, an activist from Mayabeque called me who was interested in collaborating with the newsletter and I told him that we might go on Monday.
From the moment we left, we could tell that there was an operation in place on the road: people in long sleeves, talking into their fanny packs. At Calvario Bridge, we noticed the same thing; they stopped us at the first control point in Mayabeque. They headed straight towards us by our names, they made us get out of the taxi and took us to the National Police Station of Criminal Investigations and Operations in San Jose de las Lajas. A place where the arrested men said there has been a lot of physical and psychological violence.
HT: Did you experience any violence?
Manuel: You feel the psychological violence from the beginning, I have never been locked up for eight days; they interrogated me five times. With regard to physical violence, I felt like one of the guards was going to beat me on Sunday because I got up at 6 AM and began to sing the national anthem; I believe in it and I sing it in the cell whenever they arrest me. State Security knows this. I thought that the guard was going to beat me, but three prisoners woke up and asked what was going on and in the end, nothing happened.
HT: What did they charge you with?
Manuel: The Head of the Station said that we were going to see somebody that they had investigated, to create unrest. However, the man had never been detained. The next day, State Security agents appeared and talked to me about the newsletter; they said that I would be processed in accordance with Law 210, to do with Underground Press. They couldn’t prove any of the news published to be false, but journalists that had been convicted during the Black Spring wouldn’t (2003) didn’t publish lies either.
Lisbey: They didn’t charge me with anything. I never saw the State Security agents. On the second day, I asked the Police Chief what the charges were for me to be locked up there. He responded with a pile of gibberish which made it clear that they were investigating me.
HT: What were the conditions of your imprisonment like?
Manuel: The cell was very humid, there wasn’t any light. I had read about places like this, you can’t have a shower every day. I had one every two days. They have to take prisoners out to see sunlight for 15 minutes, every two days. In the eight days that I was there, they took me out once, along with another 8 prisoners. We were all suffering the same fate.
Lisbey didn’t see the sun. Manuel and him were kept in separate cells.
Manuel still doesn’t know whether he will be put on trial because of his underground press. On Monday the 5th, at midday, he was released.
Manuel: It was visiting day. They gave me clothes that my mother had brought, who had come beforehand but they didn’t let her see me. I thought that it meant that I would be kept there longer, but they sent me to collect all of my belongings. They took me to the Capri Police Station in a State Security car with my mother. They gave her lunch because she is diabetic and she wasn’t feeling very well. At Capri, a State Security official from Havana interrogated me. They had searched my house and had seized my computer and printer. They drafted a document for receiving stolen property and let me go four hours later.
They had searched his house on Friday 2nd, at 8 AM; Manuel found this out from his neighbors. He doesn’t want to ask his mother anything.
Manuel: She’s destroyed; I don’t want to talk to her about this. I’m in shock myself. I don’t have the paperwork for my computer and printer because they weren’t purchased in Cuba. They must prove that they have been stolen or that they were State property, and they can’t, so they should have to give them back to me, but they’ll look for a way so as not to do this. I’ll file a complaint anyway.
Lisbey: In my case, they didn’t give me back my valuable belongings in Mayabeque: watch, wallet, etc. because they were being kept in a safe and the girl with the key didn’t show up. I need to go another day to get them back. My phone is being investigated and that can take between 30 and 40 days. The Police Chief said that I had to go to Capri today to see the lieutenant colonel who he doesn’t even know the name of. I didn’t go.
HT: And Cimarron’s future?
Manuel: It´s very hard to think that we’ll be able to continue without our equipment. I need to think about a lot of things, my family. I haven’t been repressed this much in nearly the last ten years that I’ve been working as an independent journalist. I’ve been arrested three times in the last seven months.
HT: What do you credit this with?
Manuel: Until now, I had always worked for online press. In Cuba, nearly nobody connects to the Internet and goes to independent media websites; plus, the majority are blocked. Printed newsletters reach more people. We distribute them at night under people’s doors, without knowing who we are giving them to. We’ve distributed them twice in the day on the street. It’s a drop in the bucket, just 500 newsletters, but it seems like it’s worrying the government. At the end of the newsletter, we’ve printed our phone number and email address. We have received phone calls and emails from people who want to say something.
HT: What are the main problems you’ve seen in Mayabeque?
Manuel: Financial crimes, corruption. In May, we published a story about high-ranking officials in the provincial government, both military and civilian, who had been arrested for corruption. At the aluminum factory, they eliminated the pay for production system for the flat low pay salaries. There is a deficit in school teachers because of low incomes. We wanted to find out what people thought about Fidel Castro’s death, but we couldn’t. At the prison we were in, they handed out Granma newspapers and I saw that Mayabeque was the second province to have the least amount of signatures in the condolence book, the first was the Isle of Youth. Of course, we have to look at how many people there are in the province and what percentage of people did actually sign.
HT: You said that in your neighborhood, everybody knew what had happened. How have they reacted?
Manuel: They hug me, they kiss me, even people who have never spoken to me. My neighbors have always known what I do. Maybe the elderly keep their distance a little. But young people ask me lots of questions. I know that they want to read the newsletters, but I need to distribute them in Mayabeque. We have also received gestures of international solidarity and calls from several newspapers.
It is relative Carlyle, if true publications are relegated to the fringe along with all sorts of questionable and deluded ones, making anyone who actually knows the truth, as opposed to the mainstream propaganda, suspect, then the restrictions, whilst not operating in exactly the same way, are definitely there. My main point remains, the most trusted news sources promote lies and distortions, whilst hiding the truth. The fact that that makes me sound paranoid and suspect to many is indicative of how total the control of the media is.
The first two sentences of the contribution from George (below) are in direct contradiction of fact.
I invite those who have the privilege of living in the free world to visit any supermarket, bookstore or newsagent in the capitalist countries and cto view the dozens and dozens of different publications representing all parts of society and all political opinions – including those of George,
Then try finding any newspapers, journals and books in Cuba.
George’s statement is completely bogus!
The press in the so called “free world” is far from free. It is every bit as restrictive as the press in Cuba, the only difference is both the journalists who write the Cuban press and the people who read it no where the restrictions come from. In the West, the restrictions are hidden by double speak, both journalists and the people actually believe their press is “free” when the complete opposite is true. This is because the system is decentralised by the market as well as multiple central hierarchies that act in their own interests, not least the CIA which spends billions each year planting news stories by their own admission, with the aim of influencing the people. Even as I write this, I myself am incredulous at how these restrictions go unnoticed, so much so that the average person who reads this will say the claim of a lack of free press in the West is hyperbole. So let me give you just a few examples. Throughout the last few years there have been multiples news stories about how China is militarizing its borders. This is true. What is not reported is that the U.S. started encircling China with military bases at an alarming rate prior to China’s militarization and has a strategic aim of threatening China. In other words China is reacting defensively to the U.S. Empire’s aggression. Nowhere is that reported in the mainstream Western news, nowhere. Thus the people are led down the road of believing that China is becoming aggressive when in fact the reverse is true. The same thing with Aleppo. Russia, Assad, these are the bad guys. Fake news of atrocities that never took place make the headlines. To be sure they are mixed with actual events as well to make the story more convincing, but nowhere, nowhere, is there reports of the U.S. and Europe’s, not to mention Turkey’s full scale involvement in precipitating and extending the civil war in Syria that has cost untold lives and displaced so many. A clear narrative is being told and it is false, aimed at stopping resistance to the empire’s expansionist and domineering plans. These are two of the world’s most major conflicts that we are being lied to and deliberately not told the truth about. Yet the journalists that are reporting on this will tell you that they don’t follow orders, just news. Where does this news come from? Closer to home, at least for me, there is currently an election for the leadership of the largest trade union in the UK, Unite, my brother who works for this trade union has truly given up on journalists in despair because he now sees how complete fabrications and spun news stories are printed with clear agendas. If he didn’t have inside knowledge of what was actually going on in the Union he would never have known that the stories were fake of distorted, he would just be like everyone else, happily reading or watching the news oblivious to the fact that they are being fed lies. Again who is to blame? My brother thinks it is the editors and the newspaper proprietors? I wondered if the initial sources could be traced back to the CIA and others? But perhaps the reality is that the system of imperialism is in fact self-organising, hierarchical yes, but self-organising none the less with everyone unconsciously taking part in mass delusion to maintain their standard of living based on dominating the weaker countries of the world. Thank you.
I wonder where Dan, Kennedy Earle Clarke, Ben and others have gone Moses?
Time continues to pass and the Castro sycophants are mute!
Not a single response Moses from the Castro sycophants! Yet they have freedom of speech.
No surprises as the communist system in Cuba makes freedom of expression illegal therefore
arrest. This must change and not just releasing people as if the government is doing the world a favor. I think those in charge of this travesty should keep a close eye as to who is lurking behind.
The truth will eventually come out as it has in this instance. But were it not for Havana Times, no such report would have been provided. This is a clear case of repression. Such repression has continued throughout the Castro family communist dictatorship. The next time that you see a picture of the self-satisfied Raul Castro whether in his military uniform with rows of self-awarded medals or in his new statesmanlike image,, think about Manuel Guerra and Lisbey Lora for their experiences reflect the reality of Cubans having no freedom of speech under his dictatorship or that of his big brother.
Castro sycophants arrive always conspicuously silent with their comments when real Cubans submit posts like this one. It is impossible to justify the Castros’ anti freedom of speech policy.