Cuba and Internet: Critical bloggers spark new government restrictions to Internet access

Cuba and Internet: Critical bloggers spark new government restrictions
to Internet access
Internet access is curbed as critics' blogs gain following

By Ray Sanchez | Tribune Newspapers
May 10, 2009

HAVANA -- Cuba is further limiting access to the World Wide Web for its
citizens, in what many believe is an effort to rein in a small but
increasingly popular group of bloggers who are critical of the government.

Only government employees, academics and researchers are allowed their
own Internet accounts, which are provided by the state, but they have
limited access to sites outside the island. Ordinary Cubans may open
e-mail accounts accessible at many post offices but do not have access
to the Web. Many got around the restrictions by using hotel Internet
services.

But a new resolution barring ordinary Cubans from using hotel Internet
services quietly went into place in recent weeks, according to an
official with Cuba's telecommunications monopoly, hotel workers and
bloggers. There was no official announcement of the change. Cuba has the
lowest rate of Internet access in Latin America.

"Internet use is only for foreigners for the time being," said a worker
at the Hotel Nacional's business center. "According to a new order from
ETECSA [Cuba's telecommunications monopoly], only foreigners can surf
the Web at hotels."

An ETECSA official confirmed the change but said he was not authorized
to comment.

Internet access is a delicate issue for the communist state; about
200,000 Cubans, or less than 2 percent of the population, have access to
the Web. Cuban officials say the U.S. trade embargo and economic
limitations prevent the majority of Cubans from accessing the Internet.

For Cubans, who only last year were granted the right to stay at tourist
hotels and obtain cell phone contracts in their own names, the ban is
one of many frustrations of life on the island.

Reinaldo Escobar, the husband of popular Cuban blogger Yoani Sanchez and
a blogger himself, said he was recently denied use of wireless Internet
service at the Melia Cohiba hotel.

"The government did not expect that the blogosphere would make use of
the Internet the way it has in Cuba," Escobar said. "They thought the
costs would be prohibitive and few would use it. But a group of Cubans
is using the Internet to project their opinions, and now they are reacting."

Internet use at hotels is pricey by Cuban standards: $5 for a half-hour.
The average monthly salary for many state workers is about $20. Escobar
believes authorities hope that bloggers turn to the free Internet
services offered by the U.S. Interest Section or other embassies in
order to later accuse them of being financed by foreign powers.

Dagoberto Valdes, the editor of an online magazine in western Pinar del
Rio province, said he and his son also were turned away at the Melia Cohiba.

"It is a new form of Cuban apartheid for surfers of the Web," Valdes said.

Cuba and Internet: Critical bloggers spark new government restrictions
to Internet access -- chicagotribune.com (11 May 2009)

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-cuba-internet-slider_bdmay10,0,2391966.story