Cuba Protests U.S.’ Cuba Internet Task Force

On January 31 the Cuban Foreign Ministry sent a note protesting the U.S. recent creation of the Cuba Internet Task Force.[1]

The note “expresses its strong protest for the pretension of the US government to violate flagrant Cuban sovereignty, with respect to national competence to regulate the flow of information and the use of mass media, while rejecting the attempt to manipulate the Internet to carry out illegal programs for political purposes and subversion, as part of their actions aimed at altering or changing the constitutional order of the Republic of Cuba.” 

This Task force has “the stated objective of promoting in Cuba the ‘free and unregulated flow of information/’ According to the announcement, this task force will ‘examine the technological challenges and opportunities to expand Internet access and independent media’ in Cuba.

Cuba “again demands that the Government of the United States cease its subversive, interfering and illegal actions against Cuba, which undermine Cuban constitutional stability and order, and urges it to respect Cuban sovereignty, International Law and the purposes of and principles of the Charter of the United Nations.”

The “Cuban Foreign Ministry reiterates the determination of the Government of Cuba not to tolerate any type of subversive activity or interference in its internal affairs and, as a sovereign country, to continue defending itself and denouncing the interfering nature of this type of action.”

“Cuba will continue to regulate the flow of information as is its sovereign right and as is practice in all countries, including the United States. Cuba will also continue advancing in the computerization of its society, as part of the development of the country and in terms of the social justice objectives that characterize its Revolution.”

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[1] Note from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of Cuba (Jan. 31, 2018); The regime sends a protest note to Washington for its plan to expand the internet in Cuba, Diario de Cuba (Feb. 1, 2018).