Another great achievement for Cuba’s socialist revolution.
A report by the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ):
10 Most Censored Countries
Repressive governments use sophisticated digital censorship and surveillance alongside more traditional methods to silence independent media. A special report by the Committee to Protect Journalists.
Eritrea is the world’s most censored country, according to a list compiled by the Committee to Protect Journalists. The list is based on CPJ’s research into the use of tactics ranging from imprisonment and repressive laws to surveillance of journalists and restrictions on internet and social media access.
Under Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights, everyone has the right to seek and receive news and express opinions. These 10 countries flout the international standard by banning or severely restricting independent media and intimidating journalists into silence with imprisonment, digital and physical surveillance, and other forms of harassment. Self-censorship is pervasive.
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10. Cuba
Leadership: President Miguel Díaz-Canel, who succeeded Raúl Castro in 2018.
How censorship works: Despite some improvements in recent years–including the expansion of mobile internet and Wi-Fi access–Cuba still has the most restricted climate for the press in the Americas. Print and broadcast media are wholly controlled by the one-party Communist state and, by law, must be “in accordance with the goals of the socialist society.” In a missed opportunity, a referendum on constitutional changes, approved in February 2019, did not include any loosening of media restrictions. Cuba rolled out home internet access in 2017 and mobile data plans in 2018, but the services are prohibitively expensive for most Cubans, with 4 gigabytes of data costing around $30, the equivalent of the average state monthly salary in 2017. Although the internet has opened some space for critical reporting, the state-owned service provider, ETECSA, is ordered to block objectionable content, and restricts access to some critical blogs and news platforms, according to a report by the Open Observatory of Network Interference, which collects data on network tampering. Some independent journalists and bloggers use websites that are hosted overseas. The government targets critical journalists through harassment, physical and online surveillance, short-term detentions, home raids, and equipment seizures. Natural disaster coverage is one flashpoint: authorities detained multiple journalists reporting on the aftermath of hurricanes in October 2016 and September 2017. Visas for international journalists are granted selectively by officials, according to Freedom House’s Freedom of the Press report.
Lowlight: In April 2019, police agents detained Roberto Jesús Quiñones, a contributor to the news website CubaNet, outside the Guantánamo Municipal Tribunal where he was covering a trial, and beat him while he was being transported to the Guantánamo police station. Quiñones had been harassed by Cuban authorities in the past, is barred from leaving the country, and has been detained several times, according to CubaNet.
See the rest of the list HERE.