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”
