|
Reporters Without Borders,
November 22, 2002.
Reporters Without Borders protested against the Cuban authorities'
confiscation of the files and photographs of French journalist Catherine David,
who had entered Cuba on a tourist visa to report on the human rights situation
and dissidents. The organisation also reiterated its complaints about the
limitations on press visas granted to foreign journalists, which force many of
them to carry out their work in Cuba illegally.
"In reality, the purpose of this visa policy is to control press
reporting and Cuba's image," Reporters Without Borders secretary-general
Robert Ménard said in a letter to the interior minister, Gen. Abelardo
Colomé Ibarra. It constitutes a curb on the freedom to "seek,
receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of
frontiers" guaranteed by article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human
Rights, Ménard said, calling for the immediate return of David's
material.
David, who works for the French weekly Le Nouvel Observateur, was stopped at
Havana international airport on 8 October as she was going through customs with
a friend who is a sculptor and photographer. They were led to a room in the
airport's basement where their bags were searched thoroughly.
All the files on David's computer were copied. Her audio tapes containing
interviews with dissidents and all her notes were confiscated. All of her rolls
of film as well as several books and reports on the human rights situation in
Cuba were also seized. The customs officials also copied all of the pages in
David's address book. In Cuba, law 88 of March 1999 provides for up to eight
years in prison for any person assisting the foreign news media.
After missing their flight because of the length of the search, the couple
was finally able to leave Cuba two days later. David's requests for the return
of her material which she has since then addressed to the Cuban customs agency
have so far been in vain.
Recent unsuccessful requests for press visas include that made in late 2001
by a journalist with the Guatemalan daily Siglo XXI, who applied to go to Havana
to cover the trial of three Guatemalans facing the death penalty on "terrorism"
charges. The Cuban consulate in Guatemala City turned his application down.
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. |
