MIAMI, United States.- The Committee to Protect Journalists, CPJ, criticized on Tuesday the approval of an amendment to the new Castro Penal Code that intensifies prison sentences, with up to 10 years, and censorship against independent journalists. on the island, according to Radio Television Marti.
“We are alarmed by the approval of the new Cuban Penal Code, which further criminalizes the work of independent journalists on the island, since it prohibits financing from foreign sources and thus seriously jeopardizes the existence and sustainability of the work of these communicators” said Ana Cristina Núñez, a researcher with CPJ’s Latin America and Caribbean Program.
“The Cuban authorities continue to build a complex and perverse legal regime of censorship and deal a heavy blow to journalists and independent media,” added Núñez, referring to the controversial Article 143, which directly targets Cuban civil society and recalls Law 88. .
Article 143 prohibits Cuban citizens from receiving funds from foreign sources and can be used to silence journalists and independent media.
Article 143
Initially proposed on January 20 by the Supreme Court of Cuba, the regulations establish that “whoever, by himself or on behalf of non-governmental organizations, international institutions, associative forms or any natural or legal person of the country or of a State foreigner, supports, encourages, finances, provides, receives or has in his possession funds, material or financial resources, with the purpose of defraying activities against the State and its constitutional order, incurs a sanction of deprivation of liberty from four to ten years.” .
The new Penal Code, approved last sunday in the National Assembly of People’s Power, will enter into force within 90 days after publication in the Official Gazette, according to the press information cited.
This provision, explained Laritza Diversent, lawyer and director of the Cubalex Legal Information Center, will affect “independent journalists and all civil society groups or organizations that receive financing from abroad. If the Cuban government considers that this financing is for activities that go against it, it does not matter if the organization is based in the United States, Sweden or Norway.”
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