The Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) released a special report surveying the changing media landscape in Cuba and the obstacles still standing in the way of press freedom.
Almost one year after its official launch, Cuban digital magazine Periodismo de Barrio decided to use the month of August, a time when Cubans traditionally take vacations, to publish an innovative project that explored a major natural resource through short stories and original illustrations.
Rodolfo Romero is 27 years-old. He received money from the government to finance a news site. It was going to be called Cuba accuses (Cuba acusa) but he did not like the belligerent tone of the name, so he decided to call it Cuba denounces (Cuba denuncia) only to discover that was the name of a site created by exiled Cuban dissidents. Therefore, Romero edits the site Pensar en Cuba (Thinking of Cuba) along with a team that depends on the Ministry of Culture. Through it, the various policies of the United States concerning Cuba in the last 50 years are denounced.
Cuban independent journalist and activist Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca was jailed and held incommunicado for five days after being detained just hours before U.S. President Barack Obama’s arrival to Cuba on March 20. The journalist went to the church of Santa Rita, as usual, to cover the march led every Sunday in Havana by the Ladies in White organization, according to Martí Noticias.
Cuban journalist Elaine Diaz has strategized a way to distribute independent news content to the masses in Cuba, a place where reaching a diverse audience is difficult due to limited accessibility to the Internet and restrictions on content.
Award-winning blogger and activist Yoani Sánchez has announced the name and launch date for the new digital publication that she announced earlier this year.
Reporters Without Borders (RSF) calledCuban authorities to release independent journalist Juliet Michelena Diaz, who was arrested on April 7. Diaz was arrested three days before an article she wrote on an episode of police violence she witnessed in La Habana was set to run in Cubanet, a news site based in Miami. The article detailed the use of police dogs in the streets and the arrest and excessive use of force against citizens.
Ángel Santiesteban-Prats, the Cuban author of the critical blog Los hijos que nadie quiso (also available in English as "The Children Nobody Wanted") completed the first year of detention of his five-year sentence on Feb. 28, reported Reporters Without Borders, calling once again for the blogger’s release from prison.
During peace negotiations with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC), the Colombian government spied on communications between the group’s spokespeople and international journalists who were covering the events, Univisión reported.
Prominent blogger Yoani Sánchez said she plans to launch a digital newspaper in her native Cuba. The announcement took place on Jan. 31 during the Hay Festival, in the Colombian city of Cartagena.