Babalu Blog

Wanted: Cuban journalists

That must have been some workshop Florida International University had planned for Cuban independent journalists this past Monday. Because judging by the reaction of the Cuban secret police — the arrests or other harassment of at least five journalists planning to attend via a teleconference at the U.S. Interests Section in Havana — you would have thought the counter-revolution was fully underway.

While raul castro and his cohorts are still firmly in charge, the police actions reveal an unchallenged fact about the struggle for freedom in Cuba: The independent journalists are on the front lines, reporting on the reality of life on the island, on activities by those trying to change it and distributing their stories to anyone in the world who cares to read or listen. Theirs is journalism in its purest form, speaking truth to power.

The powerful — or at least those who think they have the power — in Cuba can't stand it, so they respond the way they always do: With force.

Reports have been trickling across the Straits of Florida this past week about how journalists were blocked from attending the teleconference. The latest is from independent journalist Belinda Salas Tapanes who describes what happened to her colleague Julio Beltrán Iglesias

Beltrán, a correspondent for the Sweden-based magazine Miscelaneas de Cuba, was arrested Monday morning and taken to a Havana police station. During an interrogation, officers suggested Beltrán had been targeted because of the teleconference at the Interests Section. Before releasing him, they also threatened to prosecute Beltrán under the notorious Law 88 if he continued with his dissident activities, including a weekly Mass at a Havana church.

Beltrán, who has been arrested numerous times, told Salas he was worried for his physical safety and that of his 10-year-old daughter.

The other journalists arrested or otherwise blocked from attending the teleconference at the U.S. Interests Section include husband-and-wife journalists Iván Sañudo Pupo and Aini Martín Valero; Richard Roselló; and Oscar Mario Gonzalez, a former political prisoner.

Five years after more than two dozen independent journalists were arrested during "the black spring," Reporters Without Borders reports that the independent press on the island "has done better than just survive."

"A new generation born out of an emerging civil society, has taken over websites and the very few underground magazines, people like the blogger Yoani Sánchez. These new networks, made up of young people who have only known the castroist regime, are trying to use their own resources to develop an alternative press addressed directly to their compatriots within Cuba, the independent media only managing to express itself to the Cuban diaspora."

(Cross-posted at Uncommon Sense.)

Posted by Marc at March 15, 2008 08:46 AM |

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Posted by: Jose Aguirre at March 15, 2008 10:03 AM

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