Reporters Sans Frontières

Published on 25 March 2004

Reporters Without Borders has asked to meet the chairman of Telecom Italia’s board of governors about the implications of the company’s ties with Cuban telecommunications operator ETECSA, that has been made responsible for Internet censorship.

"We would like to meet you to discuss together the problems arising from your investment in Cuban telecommunications", the international press freedom organisation said in a 25 March 2004 letter to Marco Tronchetti Provera.

"We believe that your company should broach the issue with ETECSA and the Cuban government to bring an end to relentless censorship of the Net in Cuba and so that 27 journalists jailed in March 2003, accused in particular of putting the Internet to "counter-revolutionary" use, can be released."

The vast majority of Cubans are banned from using the Internet. In Fidel Castro’s Cuba only those with explicit permission can access the Net. The ban is all the more severe because it is illegal to possess computer equipment. The cybercafés are reserved for the use of tourists and are under very strict control.

In March 2003 the Cuban regime launched a wave of arrests during which 27 independent journalists were imprisoned. Among them was poet and journalist Raúl Rivero. The charge sheet against him explicitly cited his work with an Internet site "aiming to overthrow the Cuban revolution". Most of the sentences of the 27 who were imprisoned referred to their use of the Internet: posting articles about foreign online publications or simply visiting forbidden sites.

Tens of thousands of Cubans however continue to pirate the ETECSA telephone network to access the Web. These illegal connections to the Internet are a window of freedom in a country where no independent media is tolerated.

In December 2003, the Cuban authorities announced that they would track down these "pirate" users. A government decree instructed ETECSA "to use all necessary technical means to detect and block access to the Internet" for unauthorised people. To put it bluntly, the Cuban authorities demand that your partner company monitors the Internet and helps police track down Cuban Internet-users who are getting round the official ban. The telecommunications operator thus becomes a party to the repression of the Internet. This decree moreover could lead to a new wave of arrests, this time against Cuban Internet "pirates".

As shareholders of 29,3% of ETECSA, which has a monopoly on Cuban Internet, Telecom Italia is directly involved with the company’s actions.