[Asis-l] Cuba Tightens Access to Internet, E-mail, Telephones

[RKent20551 at cs.com]

                   (www.friendsofcubanlibraries.org)
                               May 19 2004

 CUBA TIGHTENS ACCESS TO INTERNET, E-MAIL, TELEPHONES

In a new effort to limit its citizens' contact with the outside world, the 
Cuban government is quietly introducing a new Information Security Law to 
centralize and restrict access to the World Wide Web, e-mail and telephone usage. 
The new law is being supervised by the Ministry of the Interior, the parent 
organization of the secret police. In recent weeks, according to reporter Wilfredo 
Cancio Isla ("Cuba Restricts Telephones and the Internet," Nuevo Herald, May 
16), the regime has informed government-owned enterprises of the new 
regulation designed to limit access to the Internet and to prevent "indiscriminate use 
of e-mail."  A letter issued by the government-owned telephone service to its 
subscribers, obtained by the Nuevo Herald, states that by June 30 "commercial 
activities related to Internet access services will be halted" in order to 
transfer all Internet accounts to a new, centralized provider named ENET. The new 
regulation also bans access within Cuba to Internet-based "chatrooms" and 
popular free e-mail services such as Hotmail and Yahoo.

Only a small percentage of the population is currently permitted to legally 
access the Internet on Cuba's domestic telephone service, which is paid for in 
Cuban pesos, but until now clandestine Web surfers have evaded this 
restriction by purchasing passwords on the black market. The new law, however, will try 
to block illegal Net surfers by limiting Internet dial-up connections to 
telephone subscribers who pay their bills in U.S. dollars, to which few Cubans have 
access. Although the new law will not go into effect until June 30, the 
limited number of Cubans now authorized to surf the Net are already being subjected 
to tightened scrutiny. Speaking under a promise of anonymity, a university 
professor -  one of the few Cuban groups permitted to have legal Internet 
accounts - told the Nuevo Herald that "the surveillance [of Internet usage] is 
fierce, and occasional access to Google has been converted into a luxury."

In early 2004 the regime tried to enact a similar crackdown on Internet 
usage, citing a need to protect its citizens from what it termed the harmful 
effects of illegal Web surfing, computer viruses and the websites of foreign-based 
Satanic cults. But the government soon backed down from implementing the law in 
the face of negative publicity from abroad, including a rebuke by the 
International Federation of Library Associations. By June 30, 2004, however, the 
government plans to finalize the new Information Security Law restricting access 
to the World Wide Web, e-mail and telephone usage. Oscar Viciedo, a computer 
specialist who left the island in 1992, told the Nuevo Herald that the Cuban 
government often deplores the "digital divide" depriving Third World nations of 
the benefits of high technology, while at the same time the regime quietly 
outlaws similar technological advances for its own citizens. "In Cuba," said Mr 
Viciedo, "one cannot speak of a digital divide, but rather of digital apartheid."

The Cuban government wasted no time in responding to the May 16 Nuevo Herald 
article which publicized the new law tightening access to the Internet, e-mail 
and telephones. On May 17 the Cuban Communist Party newspaper Granma 
published an article by Felix Lopez ("The Nuevo Herald Recycles Lies") casting scorn 
on the report by the Florida newspaper.  "I am not going to repeat here," 
declared Mr. Lopez, "the statistics and statements which on more than one occasion 
Cuba has made public in order refute the infamous campaigns staged by this 
Miami-based libelous source, and others, regarding the same theme." While denying 
that freedom of expression is limited on the island, Lopez highlighted  
government programs, such as Youth Computer Clubs for schoolchildren, which 
"socialize the use of new technologies and provide minorities with the pleasure of 
sitting in front of a computer."  In his article, however, Mr. Lopez failed to 
point out that participants in Cuba's Youth Computer Clubs are forbidden to log 
onto the World Wide Web.