19 March 2002
FREE EXPRESSION GROUPS CALL FOR JAILED JOURNALISTS' RELEASE
At a time when more than 25 opposition activists have reportedly been arrested in Cuba over the last three weeks, Reporters Without Borders (Reporters sans frontières, RSF) is calling on the government to release four independent journalists currently in jail. The press freedom group is calling for the release of Carlos Alberto Domínguez of the independent press agency Cuba Verdad, independent journalists Lester Téllez Castro and Carlos Brizuela, and Linéa Sur Press agency head Bernardo Arévalo Padron. Arévalo Padron has been imprisoned since November 1997 and is serving a six-year sentence for "insulting" the president and vice-president of Cuba in an interview with a Miami radio station, says RSF. [See IFEX "Communiqu%26#233;" #10-10].">http://communique.ifex.org/articles.cfm?system_id=2878">"Communiqué" #10-10].
On 23 February, Domínguez, who is also a member of the banned November 30 Democratic Party, was arrested in Havana and charged with "disturbing public order" and "refusing to obey instructions," RSF says. While in prison, his health deteriorated badly and he has been held at a military hospital since 8 March, the group adds.
Meanwhile, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports that on 4 March Téllez Castro and Brizuela Yena were assaulted by police in Ciego de Avila while protesting in front of a hospital where a colleague was recovering from a police beating the same day. The journalists were accompanied by members of the Cuban Human Rights Foundation (Fundacion Cubana de Derechos Humanos, FCDH). Brizuela Yera has been transferred to a detention centre in Holguín, while Téllez Castro is being detained in Cienfuegos, CPJ says.
According to Marta Beatriz Roque, head of the Cuban Institute of Independent Economists, 26 opposition activists have been detained by the government over the past three weeks, notes RSF.
For more details, see www.rsf.org and www.cpj.org.">http://www.rsf.org">www.rsf.org and www.cpj.org.
RSS