Cuba’s new Social Communication Law, which went into effect on Oct. 4, has brought with it a wave of repression against independent journalists on the island. Journalists who work outside official media report being threatened, interrogated and accused of being mercenaries.
“The Cuban regime, without delay, has unleashed a new wave of repression, which can be described as state terrorism,” Normando Hernández, general director of the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and Press (ICLEP, for its initials in Spanish), told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR).
"The objective is clear: to instill terror, force them to abandon their informative work and warn them, through threats and coercion, that the new law is another instrument to imprison them," he added.
Although journalism done outside the State is against the Constitution, Penal Code and Decree Law 370, this is the first law specific to online communication in Cuba. It gives the government the power to restrict content that is used “to propagandize in favor of the war of a foreign State hostile to the interests of the nation” or that is used to “defame, slander or insult the people, organs and agencies of the State.”
The Social Communication Law only recognizes media linked to the Cuban Communist Party, leaving aside independent platforms. At the same time, it does not establish guidelines for requests for public information and prohibits the use of content from public media.
The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ), the Inter American Press Association (IAPA), Article 19, Reporters Without Borders, ICLEP and other human rights organizations have warned about the use of the law to limit freedom of expression and access to information.
Five days after the law went into effect, independent journalist José Luis Tan Estrada said Cuban security agents questioned him about violating the country's new law.
He was interrogated for two hours on Oct. 9 in Camagüey, central-eastern Cuba. Two State security agents threatened him with being a mercenary and carrying out anti-government propaganda, while they showed him a file with all his journalistic publications.
“There is no talking to State security. Everything was a monologue on their part,” Tan Estrada wrote in a Facebook post following an interview with the Cuban political police. “I will not stop doing journalism, my pen and ink will always be with ordinary Cubans, showing their reality.”
Jessica Burunate, co-editorial director of El Toque, told LatAm Journalism Review (LJR) that since mid-September, around thirty journalists and collaborators of the independent press in Cuba have been summoned as witnesses and threatened with being charged as mercenaries. It’s a crime established in the Penal Code of the Miguel Díaz-Canel regime, in articles 135 and 143, which establishes penalties of up to ten years in prison for receiving foreign financing.
The journalists questioned have not been given information about the judicial cases for which they are being investigated or the identities of the other people involved.
Although they have been increasing, interrogations of journalists aren’t new on the island.
“The current wave of repression against the independent press in Cuba, far from being a new phenomenon, is a recurring defensive tactic of the regime,” ICLEP’s Hernández said.
“They seek to maintain their control over society, especially in an economic crisis and amid growing social unrest,” he added.
For example, Tan Estrada was previously interrogated on several occasions and detained for five days in state security headquarters in Havana last April.
This has also been the case of independent journalist, Kianay Anandra Pérez, who since December 2021 has reported being periodically interrogated.
“For months I was going to police stations at least once a month,” Pérez told LJR. “Then they moved me to protocol houses, very large and striking government houses that are far from the city.”
Pérez said the interrogations could last up to 12 hours and the questions were aimed at obtaining information about the media outlets where she collaborated or the people she wrote about.
“Out of respect for people, for the profession itself and for ethics, I did not answer those questions,” Pérez said. “I think that's why they got so upset, they called me two or three times a month and left me in those empty rooms for hours.”
Due to the pressure, Pérez decided to write less for Cuban media outlets and to stop participating in any activism initiatives. Upon seeing that a new wave of interrogations began in September, she decided to leave the island.
“I left Cuba at the beginning of October, the next day the security agent who always interrogated me wrote to me, threatening me and telling me that I could not return to the country,” Pérez said. “That same day they went to my dad's house and warned him that I couldn't come back.”
During recent interrogations, some journalists report that their work equipment was stolen or that they’ve been forced to sign documents saying they received money from international projects.
“Several have been extorted, some have been asked to return the money they had supposedly obtained for their collaboration with our media outlet,” Burunate said.
But, according to the affected journalists, the ultimate goal of the security agents is to pressure them to abandon the journalistic profession or leave the country.
“According to them [the agents], all of us who work at CubaNet are destined to degrade and demoralize the achievements of the revolution,” Tan Estrada wrote about the interrogation. “[The agent] said that I should use my passport and go on a trip, which would be best for me.”
Journalists have also publicly resigned on social media. That’s the case of Yadira Álvarez Betancourt, Yennys Hernández Molina and Annery Rivera Velasco, who announced on their Facebook profiles on Oct. 3 that they disassociated themselves from collaborating with any media outlet considered “subversive or contrary to the interests of the Cuban government.” Their social media profiles are now restricted.
Magazine AM:PM, which is dedicated to reporting on music in Cuba, announced it would take an indefinite hiatus, citing obstacles it faced as a media outlet. “Including pressure and harassment of our director,” the magazine team said in a statement published on social media on Sept. 16.
The director of Magazine AM:PM, Rafa Escalona, has not made any statements about what happened but publicly thanked the expressions of support and encouragement he received. On Sept. 17, he wrote on Instagram: “I'm fine, at least physically fine, and in a safe place. The rest is the rest.”
