In Tunisia, in Egypt, in all of the [Arab Spring] countries, they had access to the Internet and Facebook. I will tell you something that perhaps many do not know: In Cuba, that tiny Caribbean island that so often proclaims social justice and speaks of equality, access to the Internet is a chimera and is random. [Ordinary] Cubans do not have access to these so-called “spots” [Internet cafes] that have been located in municipalities. The cost is well above what citizens can afford.
[The Arab Spring refers to a series of uprisings across the Middle East that began in 2010 starting with Tunisia and spreading to countries such as Egypt, Libya, Syria, Yemen and others.]
The regime knows the importance of information. For that reason it manipulates and distorts it. For example, I learned of Facebook here [in the United States], I have been here two months and I am 49 years old.
I was never able to open my Twitter account to check it. I simply would send tweets from my phone. By the way, it costs me a dollar, which is 25 Cuban pesos, the same as a child’s breakfast.
I accessed my Twitter account here in the United States a few days ago. I am getting to know Facebook. I never imagined that a person sitting in front of a computer could have so much information.
When I arrived in the United States on August 4, 2013, I remember that I arrived around 11 pm or 12 midnight. It surprised me that I was still sitting in front of the computer in the morning. I could not conceive that a person could have access to all this information and to communication. The regime knows it. That is why it manipulates, distorts, and spends millions to interfere with radio stations. That is why it will prevent access to the web by any means.
But even so, we Cubans, with our enterprising spirit, have managed to break much of the censorship. Many of us have Twitter, some have Facebook, but very few can open it, except those living in the capital. We have managed to break it. We send messages, which is very expensive at $2.35. We are talking about almost 40 pesos to send a photo by mobile phone in Cuba.
Despite facing inflated prices, Cubans continue fighting. We continue to do our part because we believe that what we are doing is right. But it is important to devise strategies, initiatives, and greater support for us to access the web.
It would be beneficial for us to receive, those of us who can access the web through embassies or other means, courses on how to navigate the web, how to send communications, and the rest. It would be extremely important. That should be part of the assistance offered to the Cuban resistance.
Look at all that we have done without knowledge of the web… Imagine how it could have played out if we had more skills. I think that the cases of Tunisia and Egypt are different from Cuba, but there is something similar. The same longing for freedom and justice that moves the Tunisians and the Egyptians, moves us too.
Jorge Luis García Pérez (better known as “Antúnez”) was born in Placetas, Cuba in 1964. He is the leader of the Orlando Zapata Tamayo National Resistance Front. The Front is a Cuban civil society organization named for a political prisoner who died while on a hunger strike in 2010.
As an Afro-Cuban, Antúnez experienced the regime’s discrimination against minorities in restricting both educational and career opportunities. Such treatment, along with severe political repression, contributed to his disenchantment with the regime.
Antúnez, inspired by freedom movements in Eastern Europe, became active in the Cuban opposition. In March 1990, he was arrested for publically denouncing the Castro regime and sentenced to five years in prison. Despite his incarceration, Antúnez remained defiant by refusing to wear a prisoner’s uniform and rejecting the government’s re-education programs.
Antúnez also created the Pedro Luis Boitel political prisoners group in honor of the famous prisoner of conscience who died during a hunger strike in 1972. Through this organization, the prisoners drew inspiration and encouragement to continue their struggle. As a result, Antúnez was subject to solitary confinement, torture, and an extension of his five year sentence. He endured 17 years of prison before being released in 2007.
Antúnez continues advocating for freedom and democracy in Cuba with his wife, Yris Tamara Pérez Aguilera, leader of the Rosa Parks Feminist Movement for Civil Rights. His work involves supporting Cuban political prisoners, and expanding political freedoms and civil liberties.
Twitter: @antunezcuba
Cuba, an island nation of 11.4 million people in the northern Caribbean Sea, is a totalitarian state.
Fidel Castro led the 1959 Cuban Revolution and ruled the country for 49 years before formally relinquishing power to his younger brother Raul in 2008. Raul Castro is the current head of state and First Secretary of the Communist Party, which is recognized by the Cuban Constitution as the only legal political party and “the superior leading force of society and of the state.” Raul Castro has said that he will step down from power at the age of 86 in 2018.
Cuba was a territory of Spain until the Spanish-American War. The United States assumed control of the island until 1902, when the Republic of Cuba became formally independent. A fledgling democracy was established, with the U.S. continuing to play a strong role in Cuban affairs.
In 1952, facing an impending electoral loss, former president Fulgencio Batista staged a successful military coup and overthrew the existing government. While his first term as elected president in the 1940s largely honored progressive politics, universal freedoms, and the Cuban Constitution of 1940, Batista’s return to power in the 1950s was a dictatorship marked by corruption, organized crime and gambling. He held power until 1959 when he was ousted by Fidel Castro’s rebel July 26th Movement.
While promising free elections and democracy, Castro moved quickly to consolidate power. By 1961, Castro had declared Cuba to be a communist nation.
Castro’s communist government nationalized private businesses, lashed out at political opponents, and banned independent civil society. As Cuba aligned itself with the Soviet Union, Cuban-American relations soured, including a U.S. embargo on trade with Cuba. In the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis, the United States and the Soviet Union came close to war, after the Soviets installed nuclear missiles in Cuba, prompting a U.S. naval embargo.
Since the revolution, Cuba has remained a one-party state. Following the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991 and the evaporation of Soviet economic support, Cuba loosened some economic policies, became more open to foreign investment, and legalized use of the U.S. dollar. By the late 1990s, Venezuela had become Cuba’s chief patron, thanks to the close relationship between the Castro brothers and Venezuela’s late President Hugo Chavez.
The regime continues to exercise authoritarian political control, clamping down on political dissent and mounting defamation campaigns against dissidents, portraying them as malignant U.S. agents. In a massive crackdown in 2003 known as the Black Spring, the government imprisoned 75 of Cuba’s best-known nonviolent dissidents.
The Cuban government does not respect the rights to freedom of expression, peaceful assembly, association, movement, and religion. The government and the Communist Party control all news media, and the government routinely harasses and detains its critics, particularly those who advocate democracy and respect of human rights. Frequent government actions against dissidents often take the form of attacks by regime-organized mobs. Prison conditions are harsh and often life-threatening, and the courts operate as instruments of the Communist Party rather than conducting fair trials.
Cuba relaxed its travel laws in 2013, allowing some prominent dissidents to leave and return to the country. It continues to experiment with modest economic reforms but remains committed to communist economic orthodoxy.
In Freedom House’s Freedom in the World report, Cuba was designated as “not free” and is grouped near the bottom of the world’s nations, with severely restricted civil rights and political liberties.
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