The IAPA denounced an increase in repression and censorship against the press in Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and El Salvador

This Tuesday, the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) began its half-year meeting. During a virtual conference, the organization warned that repression and censorship continue to increase in countries such as Cuba, Venezuela, Bolivia and El Salvador.

The speaker on the situation on the island was Henry Constantin, editor of the dissident newspaper La Hora de Cuba, who was arrested last year after the massive protests of 11 July against the dictatorship of Miguel Díaz-Canel.

The journalist said that independent journalists currently working in his country “do not exceed 50 people”: “It is a group in danger of extinction.” It is that in recent years there have been more and more “exiles of independent activists and journalists”.

“They tell them that if they don't want to go to jail, they have to leave the country forever,” he said.

Constantin explained that what is most distressing Cuban journalists right now is the new Penal Code, which will be approved - without public consultation - in the coming weeks or months.

The director of La Hora de Cuba indicated that the new code “repeats convictions and measures of the previous penal code, the Soviet one.” In addition to talking about enemy propaganda and increasing the use of life imprisonment, it extends the use of the death penalty to four new criminal figures.

In his presentation he cited the case of Yoan de la Cruz, a young man who is not a journalist but who was arrested by Cuban regime forces for being one of the first to broadcast the July 11 protests in San Antonio de los Baños on social media. For sharing these images, he received six years in prison “for disorder and contempt”.

Since the massive protests, all those who call for peaceful demonstrations are accused by the dictatorship authorities of “incitement to commit crimes”. “The citizen who protests runs the risk of being accused of public disorder,” he added.

Constantin reported that on every national date the streets on the island are heavily guarded by regime forces to prevent civil society mobilizations.

Earlier, the IAPA indicated in its biannual interim report that repression is “the epidemic that most affects” Cuba, and warned that in the last half of the year it “rebounded” with “severe condemnations” for protesters of the protests. For the Miami-based organization, freedom of expression on the island is “weak”, and it is framed within a society “without respite” and in a “hostile” environment.

Another country that has suffered brutal repression and censorship for years is Venezuela, where Nicolás Maduro's dictatorship applies strategies that are very similar to those employed by the Castro regime.

Miguel Henrique Otero, president and editor of the newspaper El Nacional, spoke about the situation in Venezuela during the virtual conference. As he said, “Venezuela is a country off for freedom of expression.” “Venezuelans find out what is happening through the state channel, and some media that remains there.” On top of that, the internet connection “is very limited and expensive”.

For this reason, social networks have become a “fundamental” tool for civilians in recent years.

Regarding the attacks on freedom of expression perpetrated by the Chavista regime, Otero spoke of three types. Firstly, “direct physical aggressions”. These, he indicated, intensified at the end of last year in the framework of the regional elections. “Anyone who is filming runs the risk of being attacked by Chavista collectives or paramilitary groups.”

The second type of aggression he identified is the “use of the judicial system”: “It is a regime that tries to say that political prisoners have all the judgments, that the system acts, but in practice the system is a vile instrument of the executive. Almost 80% are imprisoned for precautionary measures, without sentences.”

In this regard, he cited as an example the case of the newspaper he presides, El Nacional, whose headquarters in Caracas was recently embargoed by the Chavista authorities following a lawsuit by Diosdado Cabello. “It was very obvious. A defamation claim that was due to a note that was published, which said that Diosdado Cabello was being investigated for drug trafficking. A lot of newspapers published that before us. The criminal trial is not proceeding, but without a sentence we were awarded $13 million in compensation; they took out the people who worked in the facilities with long guns, and they seized power of the facilities.”

The third and final form of aggression indicated by Otero responds to the “arbitrary decisions of the regime, which have no judicial support, but which are actions of the State”. For example, “blocking web pages”. According to the journalist, the only independent thing left in Venezuela are pages of Venezuelans abroad.

“The regime orders telephone companies to block all these pages. The number of blocked pages is considerable. They do the same with pages that they think Venezuelans should not see such as Infobae, CNN... We should ask telephone companies, which many are multinationals, why they do that, if there is no court ruling,” he reflected.

One of the countries that was once again closely linked to dictatorships such as those in Cuba and Venezuela is Bolivia. Jorge Carrasco, vice president of the National Press Association, said that “the situation in the country is complicated and follows the trend in the region.”

In his presentation, he warned that since the arrival of Luis Arce to power, restrictions and aggressions against journalists and the media have increased. Likewise, limitations on coverage of certain acts have been increasing. As an example, he cited the case of the trial against former president Jeanine Áñez, in which several media outlets and journalists were excluded, “on the grounds that they did not submit accreditations.”

Carrasco also denounced the increase in speeches that seek to stigmatize the press. As he said, “the authorities all the time seek to discredit the media”: “They say something they don't like, that makes them uncomfortable, and they immediately start blaming the press.”

For his part, he criticized the “discriminatory use of state advertising that goes only to media that are well viewed by the government”: “Independent media, considered uncomfortable, not only receive attacks, stigmatization, but receive nothing from advertising.”

Fabricio Altamirano, director of El Salvador's El Diario de Hoy, said that while there are more complicated countries like Nicaragua and Venezuela, El Salvador is on the same path of “repression, legal encirclement and dangers.”

The journalist assured that his country never experienced a situation like the current one under the mandate of Nayib Bukele, and warned that there are “imminent” arrests against journalists for investigating different cases of corruption.

As he explained, the current legal scheme “makes subjective who is arrested, for what reasons, without any documentation, and under the anonymity of accusing voices.” He recalled, for his part, that recently the Commission on Human Rights condemned a series of ambiguous laws that enable the executive to take repressive measures against the media.

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