The country's media is tightly controlled by the state apparatus and journalists operate within strict guidelines which include laws restricting anti government propaganda and insulting officials.
Reporters without frontiers say the following
Despite hinting at the possibility of a limited opening and adopting a few measures to relax economic control, the Council of State’s new president has not loosened the state’s tight grip on news and information. The transition period and Raúl Castro’s first few months in sole charge saw continuing harassment of independent journalists including police brutality, summonses and searches by State Security (the political police) and detention for short periods. Nineteen of the journalists arrested during the March 2003 “Black Spring” continue to serve jail terms ranging from 14 to 27 years in appalling prison conditions. With a total of 23 journalists detained, Cuba is the world’s second biggest prison for the media, after China.
Yet some bloggers are becoming optimists of the future.One who blogs from Havana says
Cuba’s publicly owned print and broadcast media seem to be on a slow path to improvement, delving into subjects that were previously taboo
and describes the summer's Congress of the Cuban Journalists Association which was last held nine years ago as a forum for new ideas
What was most refreshing about the presence of so many authorities was that they spent their time listening attentively to the concerns of the country’s media professionals
A long way to go perhaps but a starting point none the less
2 comments:
For the past eight years CubaNews, a free Yahoo News group has collected and shared tens of thousands of itema all still available in its free and easy-to-use database. I'm very pro-Cuba, but I share lots of material which isn't.
Check it out.
Thanks for the link Walter
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