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Reporters Without
Borders demonstrates in Paris against imprisonment
of journalists in Cuba
Reporters
Without Borders,
January 20, 2004.
Reporters Without Borders demonstrated
against the imprisonment of 30 journalists
in Cuba, at an art exhibition at a major
Paris landmark attended by the Cuban Culture
Minister.
Demonstrators made their protest at the
Great Arch of La Défense on 20 January
as the Cuban minister and the Cuban ambassador
to Paris visited the rooftop opening of
a major exhibition of contemporary Cuban
art.
The international press freedom organisation
was protesting against Cuba's jailing of
30 journalists, 27 of whom were arrested
in an unprecedented crackdown in March 2003.
Cuba has become the world's biggest prison
for journalists, they said.
More than 75 dissidents were arrested between
18 and 20 March, among them 27 independent
journalists. They were sentenced, after
summary trials, to jail terms running from
six to 28 years. They were then sent to
prisons, generally at considerable distance
from their homes, making visits from their
families extremely difficult. They were
also held for several months under an especially
severe regime, in solitary confinement and
in extremely harsh conditions. Most of them
have recently been transferred to general
cells that they share with common-law prisoners.
These transfers have not been harmless.
Weakened by months of deprivation and hunger
strikes, prisoners of conscience have been
left at the mercy of other prisoners and
warders. Three warders at Guantanamo provincial
prison brutally beat Victor Rolando Arroyo
Carmona leaving him with a serious leg injury
on 31 December 2003. Another independent
journalist, Juan Adolfo Fernández
Saínz, was assaulted on 6 December
by a common-law prisoner. No action was
taken against his assailant. The journalists
have not even received the privileges that
should go with the changed regime. The number
of family visits they can receive remains
restricted, along with their right to receive
food and post. Reporters Without Borders
has expressed its concern on several occasions
about the safety and hygiene conditions
under which the journalists live. Several
of them are suffering from chronic medical
conditions that require special treatment,
which the authorities have regularly denied
them. Poet and independent journalist Manuel
Vazquez Portal has been in hospital since
5 January 2004, because of lung problems,
about which his family have been unable
to obtain any details. Reporters Without
Borders has made it clear to the authorities
that it holds them responsible for the state
of health of all the imprisoned dissidents.
All the latest news is available on the
special page "Cuba,
the world's biggest prison for journalists",
on the Reporters Without Borders web site
: www.rsf.org.
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, Istanbul, Montreal, Moscow, New
York, Tokyo and Washington and more than
a hundred correspondents worldwide.
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