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Reporters
Without Borders, November 18, 2002.
Bernardo Arévalo Padrón, the longest-detained of the
four journalists
in prison in Cuba, begins his sixth year in jail today.
The Cuban constitution grants the state monopoly control of the media. About
100 other independent journalists like the 37-year-old Arévalo Padrón
(photo) who are grouped in 20 or so news agencies the authorities refuse to
recognise are trying to exercise their right to inform the public.
They are constantly harassed. Their equipment is seized, pressure exerted on
their families and they are summoned or arrested by the police. Arévalo
Padrón's imprisonment for the past five years is a constant reminder to
those who refuse to be silenced or go into exile abroad that they are risking
heavy prison sentences.
Arévalo Padrón was convicted on 31 October 1997, arrested on
18 November and sentenced on appeal 10 days later to six years in prison for
having called President Fidel Castro and Vice-President Carlos Lage "liars"
on Radio Martí, the US-funded radio station beaming programmes to Cuba.
He accused them of not keeping their promise to respect parliamentary democracy,
basic freedoms and human rights contained in the final declaration signed by all
countries, including Cuba, that attended the 1996 Ibero-American summit of Latin
American, Spanish and Portuguese heads of government.
At the end of 1998, after a visit by the Pope to Cuba, Arévalo Padrón's
sentence was reduced by a month for "good behaviour" (each prisoner
can earn two months a year in this way). Since then, the prison authorities have
not granted him any early release or further reduction in sentence because of
his alleged "failure to cooperate with his re-education programme." He
is due to be freed on 17 October 2003.
Before he was arrested, he had written an article for the Linea Sur Press
news agency, which he founded, about military involvement in the secret
slaughter of cattle near his home town of Aguada de Pasajeros, in the central
province of Santa Clara. Fellow journalists say this may have been the real
reason for his arrest. Secretly killing livestock carries a 10-year prison
sentence.
Arévalo Padrón is being held at Ariza prison (Cienfuegos
province), in block 2, cell 25. His wife, Libertad Acosta Díaz, says he
is not in good health and suffers from migraine and high blood pressure. He has
a persistent cold and needs vitamin C and conditions of detention there are very
difficult, she says.
Judging by his letters to them, his friends fear for his mental health. "He
has changed a lot and his family will hardly recognise him when he is freed,"
said one. His relationship with other prisoners is difficult. Some make his life
impossible so as to win minor privileges from the prison authorities. In the
hope of getting early release, common law prisoners recently stole his personal
belongings and letters and gave them to the police. The guards encourage them to
harass "the counter-revolutionary" on grounds that he is harming the
prison's reputation and their professional grading.
Arévalo Padrón's wife can visit him every three weeks. "You
get there at 8 in the morning and wait half an hour in a canteen while all
packages are thoroughly examined," she says. "A soldier then leads all
everyone into the visiting room, which is a kind of dining hall with a long
cement table in the middle with concrete benches. The prisoners arrive at 9
through a steel door. The roof is leaky, so you have to find a place where you
don't get rained on. People are grouped in families and it's very noisy. You
almost have to shout to be heard."
She brings him food that keeps, such as cheese, sugar, powdered drinks and
bread. Also lots of cigarettes. "Bernardo doesn't smoke, but it's something
to trade with other prisoners," she says.
Three other independent journalists are in prison in Cuba - Carlos Alberto
Domínguez, of the Cuba Verdad agency, Carlos Brizuela Yera, who works
with the Colegio de Periodistas Independientes de Camaguey (CPIC), and Léxter
Tellez Castro, of the Agencia de Prensa Libre Avileña (APLA). All are
thought to have been arrested mainly because of their campaigning for human
rights. From prison, some of them have been able to continue their journalistic
work to some extent by sending out news of prison conditions.
Reporters Without Borders defends imprisoned
journalists and press freedom throughout the world, as well as the right to
inform the public and to be informed, in accordance with Article 19 of the
Universal Declaration of Human Rights. Reporters Without Borders has nine
national sections (in Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Italy, Spain, Sweden,
Switzerland, and the United Kingdom), representatives in Abidjan, Bangkok,
Buenos Aires, Istanbul, Montreal, Moscow, Nairobi, New York, Tokyo and
Washington and more than a hundred correspondents worldwide.
Versión
original en español
Related
LAW 88 - Cuba: back
to darkness / Andres Oppenheimer / Free Cuba Foundation
Ley 88 (Ley
mordaza) | 
