The latest attack by the Cuban government against independent journalists: Interrogations, threats, confiscations and exile

Last Thursday afternoon, Cuban journalist María Lucía Expósito wrote that she would love for her “subversive” salary to be enough to help her sister, a doctor, who earns the equivalent of an ice cream shake for a month of work. Or that she would like to be able to cover her grandfather’s medication costs, whose pension for more than 40 years has not exceeded 2,000 pesos (just over $6). A few days ago, the young woman was summoned by Cuban state security agents, who over more than six hours of interrogation not only questioned her ties to independent media and her participation in a journalism training course, but also confiscated $1,000 from her salary. “Why don’t universities speak out about the helplessness and vulnerability of their graduates?” Expósito asked herself in a long post that she published through a friend, because her Facebook account has been disabled. “Why have my loved ones and those close to me advised me to leave my country as soon as possible?” she added.

In recent days, complaints from journalists, contributors, content creators and activists have begun to appear on social media, in what is being described as another major purge against the independent media by the Cuban government. Interrogations lasting up to 12 hours, confiscation of salaries or work equipment and threats of imprisonment against those involved, or their families, are some of the ways in which agents operate, once again anonymously attempting to deactivate any attempt at alternative activity to the state. Journalists from the media outlets Periodismo de Barrio, Cubanet, or El Toque have been forced to leave their jobs — even the country — or to publicly resign from their professional activity. In several Facebook posts, some signed a declaration last Thursday in which they renounce “collaborating and/or participating in any media or project of an independent nature and/or considered subversive or contrary to the interests of the Cuban government.”

It is an attack that, according to those involved, has intensified since last September. One of the first to make the situation public was the music magazine Magazine AM:PM whose directors, through an editorial, announced that they would take “an indefinite break.” Although they did not offer many more details, they cited “the growing pressure and harassment” of its editor by “Cuban counterintelligence agencies,” which prevent the magazine from “applying for funds” and “endanger the integrity” of the project and the team.

The editor of Periodismo de Barrio, Elaine Díaz, denounced the repression unleashed by the government on X, highlighting the summonses issued to at least 20 journalists, activists, and entrepreneurs, stating that the authorities are using the “the only method they know how; using psychological torture.” El Toque, a media outlet that the Cuban government has particularly had in its sights in recent times, has denounced the sustained repression against its contributors and insisted that “it is nothing new.” It also warned of “the possible implementation of a judicial process, lacking guarantees, that could lead to an accusation” against members of its team. Some of those affected have been made to record “mea culpas” that are expected to later be televised.

These are strategies that the Cuban government has employed previously. In 2016, there was an awakening of independent media on the island, whose journalists were later forced to publicly resign and subjected to interrogations, fines, threats, or house arrests. Most of them now live in exile. The same thing had happened before with other ventures, initiatives, or media that tried to report on Cuba from within. The response has always been the same: the only version of what is happening on the island is told exclusively by the state press, and there is no room for anything that goes beyond those limits.

In the last two years alone, at least 150 Cuban journalists have gone into exile. The government has also made censorship official, with laws that regulate the punishment of freedom of expression such as the Communication Law, which declares the work of independent media illegal, Decree Law 370, under which many reporters have received fines that exceed any salary on the island, and the Penal Code, which classifies as “mercenary” and indicts those who, according to the authorities, receive funds or are involved in some type of activity related to a foreign government, almost always that of the United States.

Raudiel Peña Barrios, a member of the Cubalex legal advisory group, explained to EL PAÍS that in this new repressive wave the authorities “are making threats with crimes that are in the Penal Code.” According to the lawyer, in Cuba there are “different criminal offenses that have been used against independent journalists, political opponents, activists, and human rights defenders such as the crime of propaganda against the constitutional order, or all crimes that include referrals to the receipt of funds from abroad. They could also use contempt, illegal economic activity, public disorder... All of them are possible crimes that can be used against these people.” Some of them carry sentences of up to 10 years of imprisonment.

This is a reality similar to others in the region in countries with totalitarian regimes. A report by the Institute for Press and Society (IPYS) revealed that in Venezuela, 85.63% of the journalists surveyed had left the country due to restrictions on the practice of their work and persecution ranging from arbitrary detentions, censorship, judicial harassment, risk of forced disappearance and torture, among others. Recently, the Foundation for Freedom of Expression and Democracy (FLED) declared that at least 263 Nicaraguan journalists had gone into exile since 2018 for the same reasons: threats, censorship, persecution, violations of individual freedom and freedom of expression.

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