MADRID, Spain.- The Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and Press (ICLEP) registered a total of 508 violations of press freedom in Cuba during the past year.
In its Partial Balance 2022, recently published, the ICLEP specified that 208 arbitrary arrests were made by the regime. In this sense, the organization explains that independent journalists or their relatives were detained, arrested and taken away by government agents without a prior judicial order and placed in forced confinement; as well as they were prohibited from leaving their home under the threat of being arrested.
In addition, 149 restrictions were registered in the digital space, 39 cases of abuse of State power, and eight physical attacks on reporters and limitations on freedom of movement.
The Institute also recorded 101 threats and attacks. Just as he denounced that three independent journalists have been imprisoned since 2021. It is about Lazaro Yuri Valle Roca, Yoandi Montiel (The Cat of Cuba) and José Antonio López Piña.
The ICLEP report includes all those who practice journalism in Cuba, whether they belong to the official press or to any other form of alternative journalism and its collaborators.
“All the documented and categorized cases of violation of press freedom comply with international standards and were carried out under a journalistic methodology of consultations with direct and indirect sources, as well as the review of information from digital and audiovisual media,” the document indicates.
During 2022, several organizations continued to denounce the violation of press freedom on the Island. Among them, the Inter-American Press Association (Yep) who, during their Mid-Year Meeting, pointed out that “the epidemic that most affects the country is repression.”
Likewise, he indicated that most of the people related to the work of the independent press, and hundreds of Cubans who post critical content against the regime, suffer police harassment and judicial threats.
