Jailed journalist released

[posei...@sympatico.ca]

 

From: PL <P...@pandora.be>
Subject: Jailed journalist released
Date: Sunday, March 25, 2001 5:08 PM

CUBA: Jailed journalist released

http://www.cpj.org/attacks00/americas00/Cuba.html


New York, March 23, 2001 --- Manuel Antonio González Castellanos,
correspondent for the independent news agency CubaPress in the eastern
province of Holguín, was freed on February 26 after serving the bulk of his
31-month sentence for criticizing President Fidel Castro Ruz.

Independent journalist Bernardo Arévalo Padrón, founder of the Línea Sur
Press news agency in the province of Cienfuegos, continues to languish in a
Cuban jail. According to CPJ research, Arévalo Padrón is now the last
remaining journalist in the Americas region to be incarcerated for his work.

Arévalo Padrón has been imprisoned since 1997 for showing "lack of respect"
for Castro and Cuban State Council member Carlos Lage. He continues to be
held in the labor camp El Diamante, in Cienfuegos, despite being eligible
for parole. His health has suffered as a result of his prolonged
imprisonment.

CPJ has been unable to contact González Castellanos since his release, due
to a telephone communication blockade that the Cuban government imposed last
December but has intensified in the past few weeks, making communication
with Cuba virtually impossible.

The Cuban government blocked direct phone calls from the United States after
the U.S. government rejected a 10 percent surcharge on U.S. calls that
Havana levied in retaliation for the Clinton administration's decision to
release Cuban government funds frozen in U.S. banks to compensate relatives
of three Cuban-American pilots killed when their plane was shot down by the
Cuban Air Force in 1996.

Because the Cuban government controls all mass media and restricts free
access to the Internet, Cuban independent journalists struggle to transmit
their news reports abroad. When independent journalists try to place
overseas collect calls through the state telephone monopoly ETECSA, for
example, operators often decline to connect their calls.

González Castellanos was arrested on October 1, 1998, for making critical
statements about President Castro to state security agents who had stopped
and insulted him as he was walking home from a visit with a friend. After
awaiting trial in the Holguín Provisional Prison for seven months, he was
convicted by the San Germán Municipal Court, in Holguín Province, on May 6,
1999. His alleged crime was "disrespect," and he was sentenced to two years
and seven months' imprisonment.

While the charges against González Castellanos did not arise directly from
his work, local journalists suspected that the journalist was deliberately
provoked by state security agents in retaliation for his reporting on the
activities of political dissidents.

On June 30, 1999, González Castellanos was transferred to Holguín's
maximum-security prison, "Cuba Sí," where guards routinely harassed him.
When he complained about the poor hygienic conditions, the guards threatened
to suspend his visiting rights. In late 1999, local independent journalists
reported that state security officers had promised other inmates special
privileges in exchange for harassing González Castellanos and passing on
information about him to the authorities.

On March 3, 2000, González Castellanos was transferred back to Holguín
Provisional Prison. On June 26, he was confined in a punishment cell for 10
days, after being assaulted by the prison's "reeducation" officer and a
guard for protesting the confiscation of his handwritten notes.

Upon release from the punishment cell, González Castellanos was placed in a
labor unit. He had a severe cold for two months and lost considerable
weight, but was denied proper medical attention. The journalist's condition
improved only after his family managed to send him medication.

In mid-November, 2000, González Castellanos (who was being denied the parole
for which he was eligible) was told that he was one of 60 prisoners being
transferred to a labor camp, where conditions were less harsh. But his
transfer was abruptly cancelled on the day it was supposed to take place.

END


http://www.cpj.org/news/2001/Cuba23march01na.html