The Cuban government accused the U.S. of paying millions of dollars to Florida journalists to make a defamation campaign against five Cuban agents jailed for life in 2001 on espionage charges, according to the news agency EFE.
A group of exiled Cuban activists in the United States is planning a fireworks display off Cuba's coast to demand Internet access and freedom of expression on the island on Saturday, Aug. 11, according to the EFE news agency.
Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez reported through her Twitter account that seven people, among them journalists and dissidents, were arrested during the funeral of activist Oswaldo Payá on Tuesday, July 24.
On Wednesday, July 18, Prosecutors sought a 15-year jail sentence for Cuban journalist José Antonio Torres who wrote a scathing investigative piece critical of an aqueduct construction project in the city of Santiago, according to the Miami Herald.
The Inter American Press Association (IAPA) has warned about a new wave of threats and harassment against Cuban journalists.
In a speech before the United Nations Human Rights Council, the Cuban delegate discredited reports about freedom of expression on the island, reported the newspaper Diario de Cuba.
An opposition group reported that the Cuban police brutally attacked an independent journalist renowned for going on a 135-day hunger strike leading up to Cuba's release of more than 50 political prisoners, according to the newspaper Diario de Cuba.
Cuban authorities have given independent journalist Alexis Ferrer 72 hours to leave the island, reported the site Cuba Encuentro.
DIssident Cuban blogger Yoani Sánchez filed a request with the country's Ministry of the Interior for an explanation of why the Office for Immigration and Foreigners’ Affairs denied her permission to leave the island and travel abroad, reported El Nuevo Herald.
Cuba is listed among the 10 top countries with the highest levels of press censorship worldwide, according to a recent report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). The report cites government control of the news media, Internet providers that block information, arbitrary detentions, and defamatory campaigns against independent journalists as the reasoning for the bad censorship record.
Brazilian journalists and international journalism organizations are dismayed that Brazil, along with Cuba, Venezuela, India and Pakistan, decided to block a U.N. plan that would have promoted journalists' safety.
Although about 800 journalists from 33 countries are covering Pope Benedict's visit to Cuba March 26- 28, the Cuban government denied visas for reporters and photographers from Florida and a journalist from the Spanish newspaper El País, according to reports by El Nuevo Herald and Diario de Cuba.