Illegal satellite dishes pick up Miami stations
By John Rice
The Associated Press
Posted February 9 2007
Havana · The U.S. government strives to stamp out intellectual property
theft all over the world, except for Cuba, where it tries to broadcast
anti-communist messages to anyone able to see U.S. programming through
illegal satellite dishes.
The Cuban government is striking back, warning TV signal pirates that
they face stiff fines and jail terms.
The Communist Party newspaper Granma dedicated a full page Thursday to
an account of the discovery and prosecution of four men who sold or
maintained the sort of jerry-built satellite TV systems thought to be
hidden on thousands of rooftops across Cuba.
It came three days after Cuba denounced a U.S. strategy that began in
December to use Florida TV stations to get around Cuban jamming of TV
Marti, a move that has made the U.S.-funded station, aimed at
undermining Fidel Castro's government, accessible to thousands of Cubans
who could not see it before. By law, TV Marti is barred from
broadcasting propaganda inside the United States, but Castro opponents
say they've found a loophole, and that the Florida stations can be used
to reach the island as long as any U.S. viewing is "inadvertent."
Commercial U.S. signals provide an alternative to the programming on
Cuba's four state channels, whose offerings include courses in
mathematics, nightly 90-minute pro-government debates and local baseball
games.
Miami-based commercial Spanish-language stations are popular, and their
news and political programs -- many created by Cuban exiles -- are often
as anti-Castro as TV Marti's programming.
Granma said Thursday that many of those U.S. channels, along with TV
Marti, transmit a message that "is destabilizing and interventionist and
forms part of the Bush administration plan aimed at destroying the
revolution and with it the Cuban nation."
Under the new U.S. plan, officials pay commercial stations in Florida to
carry TV Marti programs. The stations are included in satellite TV
packages picked up by the clandestine receivers in Cuba.
Granma's story reflected the grass-roots nature of satellite piracy in
Cuba, where private business is tightly restricted to promote social and
economic equality. Three culprits were caught in a small bicycle tire
repair shop in Havana where satellite dishes were made. Also seized were
materials to build 30 satellite dishes, metal-cutting equipment, coaxial
cable and paint.
Another man who allegedly reactivated satellite reception cards was
found with 14 satellite dishes and fined $44,390 -- a hefty figure in a
country where many official salaries are as low as $14 a month.
All face prison terms as well.
In 2004, U.S. officials estimated there were 10,000 satellite TV dishes
in Cuba. Many serve several homes at once.
But few Cubans talk openly about the dishes: They're banned for homes
and police raids periodically are staged to confiscate illegal antennas
hidden in water tanks, behind windows or in air conditioner boxes.
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