Audiovisual copies, which have been widespread on the island for more than a decade and de facto permitted by the authorities, were specifically prohibited in the latest provisions against private individuals.
14ymedio, Natalia López Moya, Havana, 9 September 2024 — The alarm has spread through the shops in Cuba that sell the paquete [the weekly packet], the compendium of audiovisuals that for years has served as an alternative to the scanty official television schedule. “This week’s is the last one I’m going to sell because the operations and confiscations have already begun,” a self-employed worker from Lawton, in the Havana municipality of Diez de Octubre, told 14ymedio.
“The police came down hard on the person who sold me the matrix, which I then copy and sell to my clients, and they took away his hard drives, computers and everything he used for this business,” the entrepreneur said on condition of anonymity. “They have already started to apply the list of prohibited occupations that was published in the Official Gazette,” the woman said, referring to the Official Gazette of August 19, a huge legislative package that included up to 19 provisions with the aim of tightening measures against private activity. Among them, increasing to 125 the number of economic activities prohibited for micro, small and medium-sized enterprises (MSMEs ), non-agricultural cooperatives (CNA) and self-employed workers (TCP).
In the report, under the heading “Information, communication and telecommunications,” number 61 prohibits “cinematic exhibition activities (5914), which include films, documentaries, series, soap operas or other similar works, as well as their availability to the public through computer media.” With a few sentences, the Cuban government put an end to a practice that has been spreading throughout the island for more than a decade.
“I don’t know what I’m going to do without my Turkish soap opera, that’s the only thing that keeps me sane, because the situation is so difficult that without it I’d go crazy”
“I don’t know what I’m going to do without my Turkish soap opera, that’s the only thing that keeps me sane, because the situation is so difficult that without it I go crazy,” says Marilyn, a resident of Nuevo Vedado and a regular customer of a copy shop near the Army of Youth Labor market on Tulipán Street. “Today I went to the pharmacy in the morning and everyone was talking about it, it’s the topic of the day.”
“My provider had already told me that he was not going to continue and that he had found another job in a pizzeria. The man had been in this business for more than eight years and everyone in the neighborhood knows him, he is very serious and very efficient,” she explains to this newspaper. “This makes no sense, it is not the time to be prohibiting more things, but to permit and open up.”
In the La Timba neighborhood, in the municipality of Plaza de la Revolución, inspectors visited several sellers of the weekly packet last week. “They told us that we couldn’t continue with this, that copying series, films, music and video games was never expressly permitted and that it was a distortion that had to be corrected,” explains Rubén, who also sells applications for Android mobile phones and software with language courses.
“Absolutely nothing, not even Little Red Riding Hood can be sold on video,” criticizes the packet seller. “Let’s see how they’re going to stop this because what’s going to happen is that people are going to close the shops and send the packet to the clients’ homes by courier. This only makes things more complicated for us, but people are going to continue to need to be entertained, these prohibitions are not going to make them watch the [State TV] Round Table.”
However, the weekly packet is not currently the main support for these audiovisuals censored on national television
The most widely held opinion among the sources consulted by this newspaper is that the measure is due to an attempt by the authorities to stop the flow of content which includes documentaries critical of the communist model, testimonies of Vladimir Putin’s excesses in the war in Ukraine, documents on Stalin’s crimes and a wealth of historical material on the repressive acts of the Cuban regime.
The weekly packet, however, is not currently the main medium for these audiovisuals censored on national television. Although the weekly compilation initially gave the government a lot of headaches, soon after those who operate the business instituted the rule of “zero politics, zero violence, zero pornography,” which allowed them to avoid official censorship, although it has never been well received by cultural institutions, which accuse them of promoting frivolity and bad taste.
The mochila [backpack] was the official antidote that the authorities found against the “poison that they are putting in the heads” of young people in the weekly packet. However, the underground choice won the battle. The alternative prepared by the Cuban State and distributed through the Youth Computer Clubs, despite its enormous resources, barely found an audience and was slowly languishing
Now the paquete has encountered a new enemy in the form of a new regulation, and no one knows whether it can be strictly enforced or whether it will become another absurd prohibition overtaken by reality.
____________
COLLABORATE WITH OUR WORK: The 14ymedio team is committed to practicing serious journalism that reflects Cuba’s reality in all its depth. Thank you for joining us on this long journey. We invite you to continue supporting us by becoming a member of 14ymedio now. Together we can continue transforming journalism in Cuba.
