So that explains why in this series of Auf Wiedersehen Pet Oz hasn't got
his lap top with him !!!
Cheers
Nathan
At 28/01/2004 08:25 -0500, Robert Kent wrote:
> PRESS RELEASE
> January 27, 2004
>
>Friends of Cuban Libraries
>For Immediate Release
>Contact: Tel. 718-305-9201
>
> CUBA SAYS INTERNET BAN DETERS "SATANIC CULTS"
>
>The Cuban government has responded angrily to worldwide protests of its
>tightened ban on home-based access to the Internet, scheduled to go into
>effect in
>late January. Only a small percentage of Cuban citizens are allowed to surf
>the World Wide Web, and even before the new ban was enacted home-based
>access to
>the Internet through the public telephone service was generally illegal, but
>until now many Cubans have been able to surf the Net clandestinely by
>purchasing passwords on the black market. The new law will make it easier
>for the
>government to track down and prosecute unauthorized Internet use over the
>public
>telephone lines.
>
> From its London-based headquarters, Amnesty International issued a report
>saying that the new law to "impede unofficial Internet use constitute[s] yet
>another attempt to cut off Cubans' access to alternative views and a space for
>discussing them." In a letter to a New Zealand newspaper (Scoop, January
>24), the
>Cuban ambassador, Miguel Ramirez, described Amnesty International's protest
>as "totally biased and full of prejudices according to the values of western
>and developed countries...," and he defended Cuba's new law as a reasonable
>measure to "regulate access to [the] Internet and avoid hackers, stealing
>passwords, [and] access to pornographic, satanic cults, terrorist or other
>negative
>sites..."
>
>In response to a Jan. 16 protest of the new Internet ban by the intellectual
>freedom committee of the International Federation of Library Associations,
>known by the acronym FAIFE, Cuba's official library association accused
>FAIFE of
>using a double standard in criticizing violations of intellectual freedom.
>Declaring that the IFLA committee "spins acrobatic pirouettes in order not to
>scrape, not even with a flower petal, the 'democratic' societies..." such as
>Spain, where the government "closes newspapers and tortures journalists,"
>and the
>United States, where the government "hunts down readers' records, blackmails
>librarians, and violates the privacy of all of its citizens' communications."
>In contrast, the island's government-controlled library association accused
>FAIFE of "showing unusual vigor and astonishing agility when trying to issue
>anathemas against revolutionary Cuba."
>(http://www.bnjm.cu/librinsula/2004/enero/03/dossier/dossier.htm)
>
>On the domestic front, Cuba's official press responded to international
>criticism of the Internet crackdown with a flurry of defensive articles ("Cuba
>Promotes a Truly Democratic Internet, Specialists and Social Leaders
>Affirm," La
>Jiribilla, Jan. 30). The Cuban Minister of Information and Communications,
>Ignacio Gonzalez Planas, asserted in a press interview (Juventud Rebelde,
>Jan. 18)
>that "everywhere, every day, measures are taken [in other countries] to
>prevent disorder, which is essential if the Web is to function well. When we
>ourselves take certain basic measures to control illegality, criticism
>immediately
>flares up from people claiming to be worried about the 'freedom' of the
>Cubans,
>even though [the critics] could confirm for themselves, although it pains
>them to do so, that the Cuban people are the freest people on Earth."
>
>The new law cracking down on home-based Internet use is only one segment of
>an intensified government campaign to reduce contacts between Cuba and the
>outside world. In recent weeks the police, in coordination with Cuba's
>nationwide
>system of block committees, have renewed their efforts to locate and tear down
>unauthorized satellite antennas used by some Cuban homeowners to view foreign
>television stations; the owners of the antennas are heavily fined. Videotapes
>stocked by clandestine rental stores, denounced as "transmitters of violence,
>vice and pornography," are being seized in raids intended to suppress
>"ideological diversionism" and limit television viewing to Cuba's official
>broadcasters. Registered computers can be legally purchased only at
>government-owned
>stores, and the baggage of arriving foreign visitors is often x-rayed to
>prevent
>the importation of high-tech equipment. The regime is also conducting a
>campaign called "Operation Windows" to register all computers on the
>island, whether
>publicly or privately owned. Many Cubans, fearing that Operation Windows will
>be followed by a general confiscation of home-owned computers, are hiding
>their high-tech equipment from the police and the nationwide system of
>neighborhood surveillance groups, known as Committees for the Defense of
>the Revolution.
>
>###
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