Authoritarian regimes promote digital governance to justify censorship and human rights violations

Cuba signed, together with 11 other authoritarian regimes, a statement in which they claim an international digital governance model focused on multilateralism, non -interference and respect for the national legislation of each State, according to a report by the Official Granma newspaper.

«This has only one objective and is to seek the way to legitimize human rights violations that these authoritarian regimes exercise in cyberspace to their peoples,» said Martí News, the Camagüeano lawyer Norges Galindo Buelga, who emigrated to Mexico after serving his sentence for participating in the popular protests of July 11, 2021.

«It is the way to establish the media through which the government authorizes the people to obtain connectivity. It is the control of what people see, and do not allow them to escape from that fence they establish,» he emphasized.

«What these regimes is looking for is to have international legitimacy to continue crushing any dissident voice that arises in the cybernetic space.»

The lawyer stressed that workers are obliged to have state accounts to become replicators of the regime’s speech:

«They must have email accounts, to which bosses have to have access, they have to have Facebook accounts of which bosses must have access to passwords and all the information so that when you want to promote a state of opinion, be able to review, have control of everything that people publish, what people read,» he said.

In addition, this allows the authorities to ensure that workers make the publications that the government is interested in a given issue, he added.

«My mother was sanctioned after July 11, to like a video of Leonis Torres who asked for the end of violence. For that simple fact, my mother was removed from her job,» he said.

The statement held the adoption of the United Nations Cybercrime Convention (UN), promoted by Moscow, during the 79th session of the General Assembly.

The text was signed by Russia, Belarús, Burkina Faso, Cuba, North Korea, Egypt, Iran, Iraq, Kyrguistan, Laos, Nicaragua and Venezuela; states that use digital technologies to prevent the free access of their citizens to the media that cannot be controlled.

«There is a permanent debate at the international level, which does not come out, about the ability to control, or not, of the information that moves on the web, which of course the states of this group of friends are going to hook to see how they profit in favor of the control and censorship of that content,» said Martí News, the analyst and historian Boris González Arenas, resident in Havana.

«It is a little other work based on the increase in censorship and the search for control,» he said.

The Manifesto questions the use of information technologies «for interference in internal affairs, political destabilization and manipulation by internet satellite networks,» says the Cuban spokesman’s note.

In that sense, Omar López Montenegro, director of the Latin American Center for Nonviolence (CELANV), said there is a well -defined confrontation between the hierarchies of power of certain societies and the population that is generating alternative forms of power through communication.

«Of course, we must have certain regulations on hate speeches, called to violence, etc., but the reality is that the Internet, and any way of communication exchange between citizens, is becoming a powerful tool and many power levels feel threatened by it,» said López Montenegro.

Cuba, a story of violations of digital rights

Often, the Cuban authorities violate the digital rights of citizenship, has reported Yucabyte, a project focused on information and communication technologies and their impact on society.

Among the most significant transgressions, Internet cuts aimed at specific individuals or in large areas of the country, hacking attempts and internet blackouts stand out.

The National Assembly of Popular Power has approved legal instruments to restrain the freedom of expression of Cubans on the Internet, such as Decree-Law 370 «on the computerization of the company in Cuba», approved in 2019 and Decree-Law 35 «Telecommunications Regulation» of 2021.

To which are added the excessive prices of the services provided by the Cuban monopoly of the Etecsa telecommunications that have just fasted the Internet navigation draconianly, further limiting the free access of Cubans to the information.

The signatory nations urged all member states to sign the document at the official ceremony provided for in Hanoi this year.

The UN has adopted resolutions and statements that address the importance of freedom of expression online, the need for an open internet and the defense against censorship and internet cuts:

The declaration on the right to freedom of expression in cyberspace highlights the importance of states not limiting or restricting freedom of expression online, especially through measures such as internet cuts for which another resolution that requires ceasing these practices that violate human rights violates.

It also promotes the responsible and respectful use of information in cyberspace, guaranteeing freedom of expression and free flow of information.