Press Freedom Day in Cuba, one of the ten worse countries in the world for journalists, in the midst of the Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara affair

"Article 19. Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers." - Universal Declaration of Human Rights, December 10, 1948

 

Taken from CubaBrief

May 3rd, since December 1993 has been recognized by the international community as World Press Freedom Day.  It is observed on the anniversary of the Declaration of Windhoek, a statement of press freedom principles drafted by African Journalists and passed on May 3, 1992 at a UNESCO seminar on "Promoting an Independent and Pluralistic African Press," held in Windhoek, Namibia.

The theme for World Press Freedom Day 2021 is “Information as a Public Good.” This is a timely theme considering the challenges confronting the free press in the free world due to technological changes, and a new media environment.

CNN NEWS18 (formerly known as CNN IBN)is a partnership between TV18, one of India's leading television broadcast networks and CNN International, outlined the topics in the theme presented this year.

The three topics to be highlighted at this year’s World Press Freedom Day 2021 Global Conference, as per UNESCO are:

• Steps to ensure the economic viability of news media;
• Mechanisms for ensuring transparency of Internet companies;
• Enhanced Media and Information Literacy (MIL) capacities that enable people to recognize and value, as well as defend and demand, journalism as a vital part of information as a public good

Today, this CubaBrief will focus on press freedoms in Cuba, or better put their systematic absence.

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) released the 2021 edition of their World Press Freedom Index. revealing that Cuba in 2021 out of 180 countries remained 171st in press freedom, unchanged from that position in 2020 when the island nation edged out Saudi Arabia to become ninth of the 10 worst ranked countries in the index. Below is the 2021 entry by RSF on Cuba.

 Constant ordeal for independent media

Cuba has continued year after year to be Latin America’s worst media freedom violator. Miguel Díaz-Canel’s election as president in April 2018, after 59 years of authoritarian socialist rule under Fidel Castro and his brother Raúl, has made no difference. The regime maintains an almost total monopoly of news and information and uses every means possible to obstruct independent media. Journalists who don’t toe the official line are subjected to arbitrary arrest, the threat of imprisonment, persecution and harassment, illegal home searches, and confiscation and destruction of journalistic material. Independent bloggers and journalists are watched by state security agents, who try to restrict their freedom of movement, and often take them in for questioning and delete information on their devices. The authorities also control the coverage by foreign reporters by granting accreditation selectively and expelling those regarded as too “negative” about the government. The gradual improvement in Internet access nonetheless constitutes one of the few grounds for hope for the future of press freedom in Cuba.

 

It is within this existing reality that the plight of Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara is a great challenge because independent media on the island is tightly muzzled, and subject to deportation, in terms of international media outlets, or prison for brave independent journalists that send their reports abroad, because mass media outlets on the island are a monopoly controlled by the Cuban Communist Party.

BBC News has provided a complete report on the events this past weekend, but fails to provide context to why Luis Manuel's allies fear for his safety. At 5:00am on Sunday, May 2nd state security agents forced their way into his home. Officials are giving contradictory statements to attempt to discredit the dissident. Activists and family members are demanding proof of life.

The Center for a Free Cuba issued a press release today providing historical context to the danger Luis Manuel faces at the Calixto Garcia hospital in Cuba.

“In the past, the Calixto García Hospital and other Cuban hospitals have been the scene of the death of other opponents under the control of the agents of the Ministry of the Interior, as was the case of the leader of the Ladies in White Laura Pollán Toledo in October 2011. The agents of the political police isolate the person, do not allow the entry of their relatives or friends, and the treatment they apply or the one they stop applying to lead them to death is unknown. There are numerous cases of unexplained deaths in hospitals on the Island under the custody of State Security. Another case was that of the blind opponent Sergio Díaz Larrastegui in April 2012,” explained Janisset Rivero, who for years has documented these cases and is a collaborator of the Center for a Free Cuba.

In both cases, that of Pollán and that of Díaz Larrastegui, whose homes were headquarters in Havana of important human rights organizations, their deaths meant the closure of the headquarters and a severe blow to the civic movement. 

Laura Pollán Toledo and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara

“In the case of Otero Alcántara, his home is the headquarters of the San Isidro Movement, an organization that in recent months has raised its voice in favor of freedom of expression on the Island, achieving numerous spontaneous and organized demonstrations in favor of their demands. The regime that has brought this activist to the brink of death cannot be trusted to now want to save him. We must demand that his family or friends can see him and verify his situation,” said John Suárez, Executive Director of the CFC.