MADRID, Spain.- Fifty journalists from Cuba, Ecuador, El Salvador, Guatemala and Nicaragua were forced into exile during the past year, lamented this Tuesday Michael Greenspon, president of the Inter-American Press Association (SIP), in a message issued the day before for World Press Freedom Day.
In his statement, Greenspon mentioned the Cuban reporter Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca, who in July 2022 was condemned to five years in prison by the Havana Provincial Court, due to the alleged crimes of continuous enemy propaganda and resistance.
He also referred to the young influencer, also Cuban, Sulmira Martínez, imprisoned for demonstrating on social networks against the island’s regime.
“It seems nonsense that, faced with forced exile and imprisonment, the Cuban government prohibits nine independent journalists from leaving the country,” he denounced.
“Simple news coverage has become a risky activity. Our country-by-country reports recorded hundreds of attacks against journalists, in many cases due to the climate of general public insecurity, police negligence during the coverage of public demonstrations”, said the IAPA president.
And he added, “this grim climate also affected dozens of media outlets that suffered attacks, as happened in Ecuador. (…) The governments of Cuba and Venezuela continued to block websites of national and foreign media”.
Last week, at its semi-annual meeting, the IAPA he pointed that independent journalism on the Island is facing “an unprecedented crisis in the last 30 years.”
Every May 3, since 1993, World Press Freedom Day is celebrated, with the aim of remembering “that a free, pluralistic and independent press is an essential component of any democratic society”.
This date was chosen by the United Nations General Assembly to coincide with the anniversary of the Windhoek Declaration, in which African media representatives participating in a seminar organized by UNESCO in Namibia drafted a document in which included the principles of freedom of the press.
