Cuba makes social media criticism of regime a crime in effort to quash growing dissent
Dissenting on social media is now a crime in communist Cuba after the government on Tuesday published sweeping legislation labeling those who criticize the government as cyberterrorists.
The all-out attack on the freedom of expression of Cubans comes a month after social media helped fuel the largest anti-government protests on the island in several decades. They also seem designed to respond to President Joe Biden’s ongoing efforts to provide uncensored internet access to Cubans.
Those who use social media to oppose the government or “subvert the constitutional order” risk being treated as “cyberterrorists,” according to the new Ministry of Communications’ Resolution 105. Calls to “alter public order” and “promoting social indiscipline” are considered attempts at social subversion with a “very high” level of danger.
Sharing content “that violates the constitutional, social and economic precepts of the State” or “incites mobilizations or other acts that alter public order” is considered a “highly dangerous” incident, as is spreading false news, offensive content, or content that damages the country’s reputation.
Another decree, number 35, also establishes that Cubans cannot use the internet or other telecommunication service to “undermine” the country’s security and internal order, transmit false news, offensive information or content that affects “collective security, general welfare, public morality and respect for public order.” And providers must monitor content and even shut down their services if necessary to stop these actions, the legislation says.
The definitions are so broad that they give the government great latitude to decide what constitutes a possible crime. Although the decrees refer to the fact that these actions entail “legal and criminal” responsibility, they include no details on how they will be punished. The government is expected to publish additional regulations to clarify.
Many Cuban social media users were stunned and indignant after learning of the new legislation.
“No repressive regulations are going to make me shut up on social media,” journalist Yoani Sánchez wrote on Twitter. “It’s been 13 years this August since I created this Twitter account. So I will continue to publish my opinions from Cuba”.
The new legal framework clearly states that the goals are political. Decree 35’s first article says that its principal objective is “to help make the use of telecommunications services an instrument for the defense of the Revolution.”
The new legal framework also grants broad powers to the Ministry of Communications, the Armed Forces, and the Ministry of Interior to regulate and control everything concerning telecommunications. It also puts in black and white that all telecommunication providers are obliged to cooperate with the authorities’ surveillance over their citizens.
Decree 35 establishes that all internet, phone, and other telecommunications service providers must guarantee that their hardware and software “provide the facilities required for technical supervision and control, as well as the legal interception of communications by the relevant authorities.”
The requirement imposes what is known as a “backdoor,” a mechanism by which the government or another actor can access encrypted or confidential information of users of software, apps, and devices such as mobile phones.
“This comes to legalize things that, obviously, they have already been doing,” said Norges Rodriguez, a Cuban telecommunications engineer and activist who runs the website YucaByte. “Previously, state entities issued regulations that established methods to save traces of the websites you visited and to check people’s emails.”
In most countries, the authorities have some powers to access the private data of users, with the prior authorization of a judge, “but the issue is that in Cuba, there is no rule of law,” he added.
Despite the controls imposed by the communist regime, Cubans have gradually lost their fear and started using social media to contrast information and denounce the situation on the island, anything from the shortage of food to repression by authorities. The learning curve has accelerated since the government finally authorized internet access on cellphones at the end of 2018.
Since then, criticism of the government of Miguel Díaz-Canel has not stopped. Many Cubans have recently used social media to report the lack of medicines and the health emergency during the COVID pandemic. The anti-government protests on July 11 spread across the island after a Facebook user shared a video of the first demonstration in San Antonio de Los Baños, a town near the capital. Hundreds of videos of the protests flooded social media, as well as subsequent complaints about the repression and arrests of the protesters.
During the demonstrations, the government shut down the internet, prompting calls to the US. administration to figure out how to provide internet to the Cubans on the island. The Biden administration has said it is studying options, like satellite or balloon technology, but the task was challenging. It also recently published a document encouraging U.S. companies to request authorization to provide telecommunications services to Cubans, which is allowed despite the embargo.
On Tuesday’s evening, the Cuban Ministry of Communications vice-minister defended the new decrees and said the government will not allow “a parallel internet.”
“The United States is using the internet as a weapon of aggression against Cuba,” said Wilfredo Gonzalez. “We are in the position to avoid any type of actions of this kind.”
After the decrees became public, Cubans lashed out on social media, sharing the hashtag #NoAlDecretoLey35 (NoToDecreeLaw35).
A user asked who will decide what is fake news. Another wondered “when the capital of Cuba became Pyongyang” — the capital of North Korea. Many insisted that they would not be silent.
To those reading the regulations it became clear that just posting about daily life in Cuba might get them in trouble.
“Because now saying that I have to drink sweetened water for breakfast because I can’t buy milk in my country is a crime and I can go to jail,” said a Cuban Youtuber known as Carly Love.
The decrees already caused a Twitter spat between the UK ambassador in Havana and Cuba’s foreign minister. In unusually forthright comments, Antony Stokes wrote in Spanish: “Harassment, detentions against peaceful protesters, trials without due process and censorship embodied today by # DecreeLey35 silence legitimate voices and violate international conventions.”
The Cuban minister, Bruno Rodriguez, replied Wednesday his country has the right to exercise national sovereignty over cyberspace “with the purpose of safeguarding peace and citizen well-being” and to “counter illegal and subversive use of ICT.”
US State Department weighed in, and its Bureau of Western Hemisphere Affairs said the new law was a “clear post-protest attempt to silence the Cuban people.”
“Cuban authorities should respect the clear will of the Cuban people to speak with their own voice,” the Bureau said on Twitter, “not punish those who speak the truth.”
The new legal framework tries to stop the circulation of information about what is happening in Cuba, but many wonder if it is not too late to prevent Cubans from continuing to express themselves freely.
“These are laws to scare people,” Rodríguez said, “but on July 11, people came out to protest in a country where you can’t protest. I do not believe that a decree will stop the desire for freedom of a population that is fed up.”
This story was originally published August 18, 2021 at 12:45 PM.