Report: Cuba Cuts Internet, Surveils Journalists

2024 · VOA Learning English

This speaker is a general-american model. Each line below can be recorded and scored against it.

Transcript

1. There was a time when activists and reporters in Cuba had to speak in code or meet in European embassies to avoid government observation.

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2. Now, the internet and encrypted messaging services offers some assistance.

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3. But as technology has made private communicating easier, Havana has found ways to interfere with, or block, messages.

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4. Cuba’s independent reporters take care to protect their phones so they do not go into the hands of officials.

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5. If government agents seize an individual’s phone, they will search through its data for evidence of wrongdoing.

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6. The Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and Press, or ICLEP, says it documented at least 210 incidents of internet restriction cases in the country in

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7. Those restrictions can include cutting internet access blocking social media sites, or hacking the accounts of reporters or the media websites they work for, the ICLEP report found.

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8. Normando Hernandez is founder and director general of Miami, Florida-based ICLEP. He said the government tries to “silence independent journalists."

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9. "It is historically well known that the Cuban state listens and spies on all the conversations it wants to," Hernandez said.

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10. "Cubans have no way to defend themselves against any breach of their rights."

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11. Reporter Henry Constantin says his internet was cut suddenly after La Hora de Cuba, the media site for which he works, began criticizing the Cuban government.

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12. La Hora de Cuba is published on Facebook and Instagram. Its team of 15 reporters has an audience of between 46,000 and 48,000 on social media.

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13. Constantin says disconnecting journalists’ telephone lines or internet access is designed to limit free speech.

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14. Hernandez said the government controls all access to digital expression.

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15. Havana controls the Cuban telecommunications company ETECSA, which controls all digital communications on the island.

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16. Access to the network for users represents both a threat to Havana and an instrument of control for officials.

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17. But with that control, said Hernandez, officials can easily "cut communication in general at historically important moments or when something is happening in the island of interest to Cuban

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18. society." That appears to be the case with Constantin.

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19. In 2021, he was detained for 10 days for public disorder after reporting on demonstrations against the government over food shortages and medicinal problems.

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20. ICLEP has documented digital harassment since 2016. In 2021, the activity was especially strong.

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21. ICLEP documented 1,129 violations of freedom of expression that year.

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22. During that year, protests against the Cuban government and Communist Party were the biggest since the 1959 revolution.

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23. Prisoners Defenders International is a Spain-based human rights group. It said Cuba’s government has been spying on reporters and activists for many years.

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24. Javier Larrondo is president of Prisoners Defenders. He said the government monitors text messages for “sensitive words.”

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25. Using encrypted services like WhatsApp or Telegram is not always enough.

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26. When reporters or opposition activists are arrested, their phones are always seized and the memory inspected by experts.

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27. "As such, it is essential never to go out with a mobile phone but to leave it at home, hidden." Or to go out with a second phone without memory, he said.

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