| Oscar Mario Gonzalez Pérez faces up to
20 years in prison under Law 88 Reporters
Without Borders, 28 July 2005. Reporters
Without Borders voiced alarm today on learning that independent journalist Oscar
Mario González Pérez of the Grupo de Trabajo Decoro news agency,
who was arrested on 22 July in Havana, is to be prosecuted under Law 88 protecting
Cuba's "national independence and economy" and faces up to 20 years
in prison in a sham trial. "The announcement of a trial is the same
as the announcement of a conviction in Cuba," the press freedom organisation
said. "González is going to join the long list of 21 journalists who
have been imprisoned since March 2003 for trying to practice their trade freely
and for not sharing the government's views." González was arrested
at the same time as 33 other dissidents in Havana, just before a planned demonstration
outside the French embassy to criticise the "normalisation" of relations
between Cuba and the European Union. Nine of the 33 are still being held, including
two others who are to be prosecuted under Law 88, lawyer René Gómez
Manzano and political activist Julio César López. Describing
the arrests as a cruel reminder of the "Black Spring" crackdown in 2003,
Reporters Without Borders accused the Cuban regime of "once again revealing
the full extent of its arbitrary power and paranoia" and said it was probably
no coincidence that a journalist, a lawyer and a political activist have been
singled out. Noting that those arrested had wanted to alert the EU about
the human rights situation in Cuba, the press freedom organisation said it has
written to Prime Minister Tony Blair of Britain, which currently holds the EU
presidency, asking the European Union "to reconsider its position as regards
Cuba and to apply the necessary pressure so that all the dissidents are released."
González's daughter Elena Isaieva, who lives in exile in the Swedish
city of Uppsala, told Reporters Without Borders : "My father has been taken
to four different police stations since his arrest. A Havana judge notified about
his trial yesterday morning. The trial will probably be quick and the sentence
will probably be heavy. My father is 61. It is as if he is going to be sentenced
to death. Nonetheless, I was hoping until the last moment." No date
for the trial has yet been set. When González was summoned and questioned
by two state security agents in Havana on 24 March, he was threatened with never
seeing his family again if he continued to work as a journalist. He was offered
the chance of going to Sweden where his daughter lives, but he refused. He
told Reporters Without Borders afterwards that he would not give up being a journalist
and would continue to write. "That is the way he is, he will never give up,"
his daughter told Reporters Without Borders. Three of the journalists who
have been in prison since March 2003 and who were convicted under Law 88 are members
of the Grupo de Trabajo Decoro news agency. They are Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez
(who is serving a 20-year prison sentence), Omar Moisés Ruiz Hernández
(who was sentenced to 18 years) and José Ubaldo Izquierdo Hernández
(sentenced to 16 years). An emergency law promulgated in March 1999, Law
88 has the stated aim of "responding to the repeated attacks by the United
States against Cuba's independence and sovereignty" by punishing "actions
which, in accordance with imperialist interests, seek to subvert the nation's
internal order and destroy its political, economic and social system." It
overrides all preceding legislation and gives the regime a free hand to stifle
all dissent under the pretext of resisting foreign aggression | 
