HAVANA TIMES – If a Cuban citizen dwelling inside the united states of America comes to a decision to start a weblog on WordPress, Medium, or some other loose Internet carrier, they can be fined up to at least one,000 pesos (CUP), round 40 USD. This is stated in articles sixty-eight and 69 of the brand new Decree-Law 370 of 2018 for the computerization of Cuban society, which just took effect.
The decree, permitted by way of the State Council without going via the National Assembly, states as a contravention “hosting a website on servers positioned out of the country, other than servers that reflect or mirror the primary web page servers located in the national territory.” In conversations with two officers of the Ministry of Communications, each showed that the resolution applies to herbal humans.
“If I actually have a blog on WordPress and I do now not want to position it on a countrywide server, can I be fined?” I requested. “It is a contravention, and you could be fined if they locate it,” they responded.
In Cuba, there may be a single blog website hosting service, the Reflejos platform, organized with the aid of the Youth Computer and Electronics Clubs. This host explicitly censors content that “denigrates the paintings of the Revolution in any sphere, its leaders, the Government and the State, the paintings of the Communist Party of Cuba, the Communist Youth (UJC) and the Mass Organizations, the Revolutionary Armed Forces, the Ministry of Interior (MININT) and the Mass Media.” This method that any grievance of the noted establishments can be considered a violation of the provider’s personal conditions, and the weblog may be removed.
This changed into the case with the Arcoiris (Rainbow) Project page. Arcoiris, which turned into begun in 2011 to percentage records on sexual diversity and different related subjects, published a text in February 2016 that called interest to human rights violations dedicated by using the Military Support Units for Production (UMAP).
“Fifty years have exceeded because the creation of the UMAP, and no longer an unmarried accountable person has apologized to the human beings,” examine the text that prompted the closure of the weblog. Previously, different blogs together with Bubusopia, Observatorio Critico, and La Jugada were closed.
In April 2019, the Telecommunications Company of Cuba (ETECSA) announced a brand new web hosting provider for citizens’ websites. Their alternatives all require a price, including a preliminary installation rate and monthly costs.
Depending on the kind of web page, costs should range among 3 CUC and fifty-five CUC in line with the month. A website of 3 CUC in keeping with the month might acquire only 60 MB of internet site statistics storage and 40 MB for a database. In evaluation, a worldwide carrier such as Digital Ocean, for example, expenses $5 in line with a month for 25 GB.
In the technical necessities of the internet websites for hosting, ETECSA highlights that “besides for messaging, it has disabled the realization of statistics exchange gateways and comparable portals that facilitate the go out to different services located outdoor the server, which would allow the interplay of this with different systems and applications outside to the service.”
This manner that if you may’t even insert a YouTube video or a tweet interior your website. In addition, ETECSA notes that “you cannot host publications that represent media,” which in addition restricts the non-country media gift in u. S.
Article 71 of the Decree-Law provides that in addition to the first-rate, the ones answerable for infringements can have their “manner and device” confiscated, and according to Article 74, could pass on “to the area. Of the Ministry of Communications.”
According to this law, loads of Cuban bloggers who nowadays host their websites on servers inclusive of WordPress might be fined or lose their computers and telephones.
The inspectors appointed by way of the Ministry of Communications and via the neighborhood administrations of the People’s Power “would also endorse and assist in the software of the seizures, once accepted by way of the authority specified through the Ministry of Communications.” The new cyber police could be empowered, similarly, “to carry out the retention of the items subject to confiscation.”
How the communist regime longs for the vintage days after they imposed total censorship. Diaz-Canel turned into correct in having fears that expanded degrees of information would motive troubles. Information is the enemy of communism, which seeks to govern and indoctrinate.
“A revolution can’t be done with freedom of the press.” – Che Guevara
“Certain measures had been taken inclusive of the status quo of a bourgeois shape of freedom of the press. This means the counterrevolution and the exploiters, the very enemies of socialism, had been granted the proper to talk and write freely in opposition to socialism.” Fidel Castro following the Czech uprising towards communism in 1968.
Nothing has changed within the communist mindset of power and control, and nothing will be forgiven. The slightest chink, the rot of freedom, can input and infest the communist body leading to decay.
