By Esteban Israel Reuters
Published: October 11, 2007
HAVANA: When Yoani Sánchez, 32, wants to update her blog about daily
life in Cuba, she dresses like a tourist and strides confidently into a
Havana hotel, greeting the staff in German.
That is because Cubans like Sánchez are not authorized to use hotel
Internet connections, which are reserved for foreigners.
In a recent "Generación Y" posting at www.desdecuba.com/generaciony/,
Sánchez wrote about the abundance of police patrolling the streets of
Havana, checking documents and searching bags for black-market merchandise.
She and a handful of other independent bloggers are opening up a crack
in the government's tight control over media and information to give the
rest of the world a glimpse of life in the one-party, Communist state.
"We are taking advantage of an unregulated area. They can't control
cyberspace out there," she said.
Today in Technology & Media
Cellphone check-ins get a global standard with bar codes
'Intel inside' ad campaign shifts focus to the Web
'Assassin's Creed' video game attracts buzz for holiday season
But the bloggers face many difficulties.
Once inside the hotel, Sánchez has to write fast. Not because she fears
getting caught, but because online access is prohibitively expensive. An
hour online costs about $6, the equivalent of two weeks of pay for the
average Cuban.
Independent bloggers like Sánchez have to build their sites on servers
outside Cuba, and they have more readers outside Cuba than inside.
That is not surprising, since only 200,000 Cubans of the 11 million on
the island have access to the World Wide Web, the lowest rate in Latin
America, according to the International Telecommunication Union.
Only government employees, academics and researchers are allowed to have
their own Internet accounts, which are provided by the government.
Ordinary Cubans are allowed only to open e-mail accounts that they can
access through terminals at post offices, where they can also see Cuban
Web sites but access to the rest of the World Wide Web is blocked.
"My access to Internet is very irregular," wrote the anonymous author of
a blog called "My island at midday," (http://isla12pm.blogspot.com).
The Cuban government blames the limited Internet access on the U.S.
sanctions that bar Cuba from hooking up to underwater fiber-optic cables
that run just 12 miles, or 19 kilometers, offshore, a highway of
broadband communication. Instead, Cuba must use expensive satellite
uplinks to connect to the Internet via countries like Canada, Chile and
Brazil.
Critics say that is just a pretext to maintain control over the
Internet, a powerful tool that some believe could play an important role
in spreading information in Cuba.
Cuba has already had a taste of openness since the ailing Cuban leader
Fidel Castro agreed to temporarily hand over power last year to his
brother Rául, who has encouraged debate at all levels of society on
Cuba's unproductive economy.
But the reaction to television programs in December that honored
notorious censors from the early 1970s - when Cuba adopted Soviet
policies and cracked down on writers, artists and homosexuals - showed
the potential of the Internet to effect change. There was such a flood
of e-mail messages from Cuban intellectuals, academics and others with
Internet access that the government was obliged to meet with them and
issue an apology for the program.
Dozens of government supporters, mainly state-employed journalists with
Internet accounts, have blogs. But most of them avoid commenting on the
travails of daily life in Cuba and stick to the official line.
Many reproduce columns that Fidel Castro has written from his sickbed,
along with criticism of the United States taken from the state-run news
media.
One exception is Luis Sexto, a columnist for the Communist Youth
newspaper Juventud Rebelde, who recently posted a blistering attack on
state bureaucracy at luisexto.blogia.com.
"Without public criticism, mistakes will continue to hurt our country,"
Sexto wrote last month.
Others avoid politics and discuss cinema and literature, or nostalgia
for the Soviet cartoons that many Cubans were brought up on
(munequitosrusos.blogspot.com).
But most prefer to remain anonymous or use pseudonyms in order to
protect themselves.
A blogger who goes by the name of "Tension Lia" posts mostly photographs
of the ruinous state of the architectural treasures of Havana on
Havanascity (havanascity.blogspot.com).
The creator of "My island at midday" said via e-mail that the anonymity
of the blog had allowed him to say some things that nobody has dared
write about.
"Dissent has always been frowned upon," the author wrote.
"Intolerance is still the rule in Cuba, even though Cuban society is
starting to adapt to diversity of opinions."
http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/10/11/business/cubablog.php?WT.mc_id=rsstechnology
No comments:
Post a Comment