As independent media blossoms in Cuba, journalists face a crackdown

Chilling' new criminal law penalizing internationally funded journalism comes as repression in the country is on the rise

Since graduating from the University of Havana's faculty of journalism in 2021, Pedro Sosa, 24, has photographed families of political prisoners and written about the chronic lack of medicine and syringes in Cuba's fraying medical system.

It was risky work on an island that brooks little dissent, but in September things came to a head: he was interrogated by state security and told that if he didn't renounce his work for the independent media outlets El Toque (the Touch) and El Estornudo (the Sneeze) he could face jail.