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Warning: access barred Internet in Cuba
By Claudia Márquez Linares

On the eve of the World Summit on the Information Society, which ended Friday in Geneva, the director-general of Unesco declared on these pages that freedom of expression, as expressed in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights applies to the Internet as much as it does the older forms of press and radio.

International Herald Tribune
HAVANA

On the eve of the World Summit on the Information Society, which ended Friday in Geneva, the director-general of Unesco declared on these pages that freedom of expression, as expressed in Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights applies to the Internet as much as it does the older forms of press and radio. ( The free flow of ideas pays off, by Koichiro Matsuura, IHT, Dec. 9)

Here in Cuba the government jails its citizens for distributing this same Declaration and we do not enjoy freedom of expression in any media whatsoever, not even in private conversations.

Since my country was represented at this summit, I feel that as a Cuban and as an enthusiast of Internet I can contribute a few clarifications.

We have heard over and over again the government's data about the number of computers installed in schools for the development of information society since the earliest age.

The Cuban delegation to the summit no doubt criticized the embargo against Cuba and said that all the obstacles we Cubans have to accessing the Web are due to the imperialism of the globalized world.

But seen from here, the problem is not in globalization or imperialism but in the lack of freedom. Cuban citizens cannot buy computers, only state enterprises can.

Although, as for other things, the black market does wonders, there is always the risk of losing it all. Operation Windows, in which the government orders searches and confiscates all electronic equipment that was not bought in its monopolistic hard-currency shops, makes cybernauts go clandestine.

People hide their computers and give up connecting to the Internet in order to protect their laptops. The lucky ones who have access to the Web at work give or sell the password.

There are two main Internet providers in the country and they offer services to state enterprises and hotels for foreign tourists. Individual access for local people does not exist.

For the past few years there have been several cybercafes where Cubans can surf the Web. The cheapest price is five dollars an hour, which means that a physician would spend his whole monthly salary in four hours. Given the slow connection, one needs to have rich cousins abroad who send cash, or a foreign spouse.

Entering most hotels where the Internet connection is faster is forbidden to local citizens. The price there is between six and eight dollars an hour the monthly salary of a Cuban worker.

Even if a Cuban manages to enter such a hotel, the Web sites that address Cuban subjects from a perspective other than the one approved by the Cuban government are blocked.

Schools do have computers, but not the access to the Internet. A few have a Cuban version of the Web on Intranet, which contains only those Web sites that the government of Cuba put there.

Perhaps the connection is so slow because hundreds of persons working for the Ministry of Interior are checking on the traffic on the Web. Although this has never been confirmed, everybody is convinced that the e-mails are under state surveillance.

A Cuban woman buying a card for Internet access was told by the saleswoman, Pornographic and counterrevolutionary materials are not allowed. The saleswoman did not elaborate if the latter meant reading a newspaper published in Miami, sending data on our husbands who are political prisoners to Amnesty International, criticizing the government through an e-mail or joining a chat group with an exiled Cuban. But she did take the name of the card buyer and noted down the number.

The Cuban paradox is that here the Internet is a tool that the government uses to better control us, to catch its own citizens in this tangled web it weaved.

The writer is vice president of an independent association of Cuban journalists, Manuel Marquez Sterling and co-editor of its samizdat review, De Cuba. Her husband, Osvaldo Alfonso Valdes, is serving an 18- year sentence for opposing the regime.

 

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About the author


Claudia Márquez Linares Claudia Márquez Linares
Claudia Márquez Linares is vice president of the Manuel Márquez Sterling Society, a journalists' group. This article was translated by the Times from Spanish.

 

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