(U//FOUO) Open Source Center Cuban Independent Blogging, Political Activism Grows

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Cuban Independent Blogging Grows; Political Activism Varies

FEA20090619862999 – OSC Feature – Cuba — OSC Media Aid 18 Jun 09

A small group of independent bloggers, including Yoani Sanchez, Reinaldo Escobar, and Claudia Cadelo, has promoted blogging as a vehicle for free expression and information sharing to circumvent Cuba’s tightly controlled media environment, and to communicate with the outside world. They have become increasingly confrontational toward the government, demanding greater civil liberties and criticizing many government policies . Other on-island bloggers — many of them journalists or university professors and students — have called on the government to be more open and allow greater access to outside information, but they generally have avoided direct criticism of it. The government response has been limited to date, but the increasingly antigovernment line of some bloggers is likely to test the limits of government tolerance.

Yoani Sanchez, Voces Cubanas

Sanchez, who has been at the forefront of promoting and coordinating Cubans’ use of blogs as a forum for free expression and as a way to criticize government policy, helped create the Voces Cubanas (www.vocescubanas.com) platform for on-island bloggers in October 2008. The site, which is registered in the United States and hosted on a Spanish server, currently has 13 blogs, all of which express some criticism of the Cuban Government.[ 1] [a]

Sanchez leads weekly meetings to discuss blogging in Cuba. During one meeting, participants discussed including their blogs on Facebook and Twitter to give “friends and other interested people” greater and faster access (Itineraro Blogger, 11 April).[ 2] She also announced on her Generacion Y blog that she and a group of friends were using cell phone text messages to circulate international news (29 May).[ 3]
She has used her international prominence — her blog is hosted on foreign news sites and she is regularly interviewed by foreign reporters — to urge international support for on-island bloggers. She recently called on readers to link websites to the on-island blogs, send the bloggers computer parts, and buy Internet access cards for them (Generacion Y, 29 May). [ 4]
Sanchez was among the first to publicize an apparent new restriction that barred hotels from allowing Cubans to buy Internet access, posting a YouTube video of an employee at one Havana hotel explaining the ban to her husband, fellow blogger Reinaldo Escobar. The ban was minimally enforced at the outset, however, and now appears to have been dropped altogether, a development Sanchez portrayed as a victory for Cuba’s bloggers (Generacion Y, 23 April).[ 5] [b]

Sanchez also has taken an increasingly active role in protests and other actions to press demands for freedom of expression and travel and greater access to the Internet.

She took the stage to demand Internet freedom during the government-sponsored Havana Biennial art festival, and she participated in an unauthorized presentation at the Havana book fair (Generacion Y, 30 March, 17 February).[ 6] [ 7]
Sanchez — who has been denied permission to travel to receive German and Spanish awards — publicized plans for a 1 May protest demanding more freedom to travel and later reported that it was a success despite limited participation in Havana (Generacion Y, 23 April, 2 May).[ 8] [ 9] She also was part of a group that accompanied dissident Edgar Lopez to the immigration office in an attempt to pressure the government to allow him to travel abroad (Generacion Y, 28 April).[ 10]

Internet, Blogs in Cuba Only about 2.1% of Cubans have access to the Internet itself, according to a recent Freedom House report, which rated Cuba the least free of 15 countries surveyed in terms of Internet freedom (www.freedomhouse.org). Internet World Stats (www.internetworldstats.com) cites both the 2.1% figure as well as 11.5% for Cuba’s Internet penetration rate; the higher number is attributed to the International Telecommunications Union, which may be relying on government statistics that include those who only have access to the Cuban intranet. [ 11]

The number of on-island Cuban blogs, however, continues to increase. Of 66 blogs claiming to originate on the island that OSC surveyed in early June 2009, 46 had been created since April 2008 — including 14 thus far in 2009 — compared to 20 created prior to April 2008.

All of the bloggers featured on the Voces Cubanas platform have been critical of the regime, and Octavo Cerco author Claudia Cadelo has been the most forceful in demanding wholesale political change.

Cadelo wrote in Octavo Cerco on 2 June that political change should include the “resignation of the president of the Councils of State and Minister and of the entire National Assembly,” multiparty elections, and overhaul of the security forces.[ 12] She said on 4 May that she wanted a “‘change of government’ from top to bottom.”[ 13]
Miriam Celaya, author of Sin EVAsion, called the Central Committee an “old machine” that could not be fixed (9 June).[ 14] She also complained of “ideology fatigue” and said that Cuban leaders were preparing to “blame” citizens for economic problems of their own making (Sin EVAsion, 7 June, 26 May).[ 15] [ 16]
Veritas blogger Eugenio Leal posted the results of a survey he conducted of 487 Cubans, 51% of whom said that a system change was necessary to improve the economy and criticized the government because it “manipulates everything” (3 June, 7 May).[ 17] [ 18] Desde Aqui author Reinaldo Escobar claimed that the Internet’s ability to promote free expression did not “conform to the political will of the government,” and he criticized its response to US policy initiatives (26 May, 21 April).[ 19] [ 20] [c]
Sanchez and like-minded bloggers have become bolder in criticizing the government since they first launched their blogs. Their posts initially focused more on their personal experiences and dealt only indirectly with politics. Most early bloggers wrote under pseudonyms; Miriam Celaya later dropped hers and most new bloggers on Voces Cubana write under what they say are their real names.

Bloggers Cuba

Another 15 blogs, maintained by Cubans who mostly claim to be journalists or information technology professors and students, use a separate off-island platform, Bloggers Cuba, to urge greater access to the Internet and more government openness. The website (www.bloggerscuba.com) is registered in Panama and hosted on a server in the United States.

The earliest post on the site, dated 2 June 2008, announced that the platform is designed to unite on-island bloggers and promote the spread of “social networks.”[ 21] It sought to expand readership to those lacking regular Internet access by distributing a hardcopy compilation of all posts in February earlier this year, but it has not repeated this since then.[ 22]
Elaine Diaz, who claims she is a journalist, posted an article on her La Polemica Digital blog and on the Bloggers Cuba platform stating that she wanted “political e-participation” in Cuba modeled after President Obama’s campaign (21 May).[ 23]
A post by Alejandro Perez Malagon, a self-described engineering professor at a Havana university, called for a blog forum on the Cuban intranet that would be freely available to all, along with greater Internet access (Artilugios.cu, 7 April).[ 24] Malagon earlier said Vice Information Minister Boris Moreno’s statements about the planned fiber optic cable between Venezuela and Cuba were “promising” because they indicated that the government would not seek to limit Internet access once the cable was in place (6 February). [ 25]
Boris Leonardo Caro, who appears to post only to the Bloggers Cuba site and identifies himself as a journalist, wrote on 10 June that the number of Cubans on Twitter was increasing, and David Chapet, a French expatriate claiming to live in Cuba, posted a list of Cuba-related groups on Facebook (Journal de Cuba, 29 January).[ 26] [ 27] Chapet, however, registered the Bloggers Cuba site with a business address in Panama, according to whois.com.

Bloggers Cuba authors have not openly criticized the Cuban Government, although they have occasionally complained about conditions on the island. Most entries are apolitical and they appear to be operating with some degree of government sanction.

Caro wrote on 22 May that state-run media outlets treated the public “like children,” but he went on to assert that he did not mean to criticize them.[ 28] Bubusopia blogger Rogelio Diaz Moreno on 30 January criticized the dual currency system.[ 29]
Most of the entries on the Bloggers Cuba platform discuss sports, film, music, and literature as well as state-sponsored cultural events. Discussion of current events usually takes a factual or neutral tone.[ 30] [ 31] [ 32] [ 33] [ 34] [ 35] [ 36] [ 37]
The bloggers report holding meetings to discuss on-island blogging and access to the Internet, with the most recent held 1 June. Their first meeting was held 16 September 2008 at a state-run computer center in Havana (Bloggers Cuba).[ 38] [ 39] Bloggers, Web-Based Software, Embargo Bloggers at both Voces Cubana and Bloggers Cuba have criticized the United States over restrictions on Cubans’ access to web-based software because of the embargo.
Sanchez wrote on 30 May that enforcement of restrictions on the use of MSN Messenger was a “blow” to Internet users in Cuba and that it contributed to censorship in Cuba (Generacion Y).[ 40] Cadelo likewise complained that a new provision in the Rights and Responsibility statement on Facebook could limit access and was a “contradiction” that “facilitated” the government’s work (Octavo Cerco, 12, 10 June).[ 41] [ 42]
Several Bloggers Cuba posts have complained about Google services that are unavailable on the island, linking the absence to the embargo (1 June, 4 May, 21 April, 28 January).[ 43] [ 44] [ 45] [ 46]

Government Response

The government has avoided taking a heavy-handed approach against the independent bloggers, instead promoting its own blogging platform that, unlike the others, is accessible on the Cuban intranet. While it apparently dropped the ban on allowing Cubans to buy Internet access at hotels, state media have delivered a few relatively low-key warnings, particularly to Sanchez.

The Cuban Journalists Blogs site at blogcip.cu appears intended to provide a progovernment counter to independent bloggers. The earliest post on the platform is dated 14 November 2006, but the site has seen a significant increase in use recently, with near daily posts in May and June after monthly totals of only 6 to 10 posts earlier this year. The conditions for use include a provision that participants will not publish “counterrevolutionary” materials.[ 47]
A commentary on government website CubaDebate denounced “cyberdissidents” and accused Sanchez of being linked to the United States (6 May).[ 48] The cultural weekly La Jiribilla denounced Sanchez’s speech during the Biennial (13 April).[ 49]

[This item was originally filed as LAF20090618498001]

Cuba, Open Source Center

(U//FOUO) Open Source Center Cuban Independent Blogging, Political Activism Grows

December 15, 2010

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