Group: Cuban press makes strides despite controls
NEW YORK — An independent press is emerging in Cuba despite a constitutional requirement that media be controlled by the one party communist state, the Committee to Protect Journalists said in a report issued Wednesday.
CPJ said bloggers, documentary filmmakers and others have been creating new spaces for free expression and entrepreneurial journalism, but they are still hindered by the threat of arbitrary detention and limited internet access.
“The change in Cuba’s outlook toward a more free press is a welcome development,” Carlos Lauría, CPJ’s program director and senior Americas program co-ordinator said. “The government needs to ground these changes in the country’s constitution and other legal frameworks so that journalists and bloggers can report freely and without fear of persecution.”
The advent of an independent media can be traced back to 2011 when President Raul Castro introduced free market reforms, but these reforms have been sluggishly implemented and even reversed in some cases, the report states.