The National People’s Power Group (ANPP) on Thursday approved the Social Communication Right, a legal regulation that, according to civil society organizations and activists, could further affect basic human rights in Cuba, such as freedom of speech and access to public information. .
According to the official site of Cubadebate, Esteban Lazo, president of the ANPP, explained the law as “the result of a broad and strict collective construction process in which doctors and experts from different disciplines, institutions and organizations participated, until they reached the 34th version of the document”.
The president of the Institute of Communication and Social Information, Alfonso Noya Martínez, presenting the task to the delegates, said that it “recognizes the contribution of social communication to strengthen the unity of the people, strengthen and defend the socialist ideology. freedom, kingdom and national security”.
He also described it as “a major contribution to the political, ideological, economic, communication and cultural mission of the Cuban war”.
According to the official, the plan presented to the members of the ANPP has 69 changes in content and form, which represent a 59.48% transformation with respect to the original text of version 33, under the second consultation with the representatives.
This Law of Social Communication, a request to official journalists and ministers of the ideological media of the island, would have the objective of “a control system of social communication for the appropriate and integrated management of communication processes in the organization, media and communities, for politicians, public.” good, organizational and commercial purposes, both in physical spaces and digital public spaces, their authors affirm.
However, + Voices Collective, from the Regional Alliance for Free Expression and Information, pointed out that the Cuban government intends to use this legal instrument of communication “as a mechanism to promote official policy”.
According to the analysis of the new legislation carried out by the collective, this law prohibits the space of social communication to have voices other than those that express the “revolutionary thought of the people” and “to strengthen its transformative action as a social subject; the Cuban political system and promoting the construction of a socialist society, to adhere to the demands of the Constitution confirmed”, citing Article 55.1 of the proposal.
Voices also warned that the text is considered to be public information to which citizens are entitled “it is what is transmitted in the media”. On the other hand, he pointed out that the “bodies and institutions of the administration of the Central State” are limited, saying that they are only obliged to answer questions from “journalists and legally recognized media”.
He declared that the organization does not consider “personal information” about the official organizations of the state to be in the public domain, “unless the law allows it”; so that the members of the group think that public positions are “protected”, “in most of the world” they are obliged to “sworn and periodic declaration of income and patrimony”.
According to the group, “vague and political ideas to limit the type of content that can be disseminated through the media”, affirming that they cannot “subvert the constitutional order and undermine the social state of law and social justice”, nor to support “the communication attack that takes place against the country”.
The regulations state that “non-fundamental media” are registered in the register “by the Institute of Information and Social Communication”, but that the registration can be canceled if the content of the media “partially or totally violates what is established in the Constitution, this Law and other regulatory provisions, or if “objectives, editorial profile and other elements contained in the approved document” did not meet.
According to the new law, there can be no “electronic cooperation or any other editing of social media whose contents are contrary to the Constitution, this Law and other regulatory provisions”.
The new law prohibits the legal creation of non-statutory institutions or entities whose purpose is the management of corporate social media.
