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Isle of Youth journalist
faces trial on trumped-up charges
Reporters
Without Borders,
August 8, 2005.
Reporters Without Borders voiced deep concern
today on learning that independent journalist
Lamasiel Gutiérrez Romero of the
Nueva Prensa Cubana news agency is to be
tried tomorrow for civil disobedience and
resisting the authorities before a municipal
court in Nueva Gerona, on the western Isle
of Youth.
"The Cuban government is once again
trying to gag journalists who dare to say
the truth about its dictatorial practices,"
the press freedom organisation said. "After
Gutiérrez's sinister experience on
14 July, no one should be fooled by the
trumped-up charge of civil disobedience."
Reporters Without Borders learned about
Gutiérrez's trial when she contacted
the organisation today. The charges relate
to the events of 14 July, when she was detained
arbitrarily for seven hours by three state
security agents. She was hit and she offered
some resistence when the agents began to
photograph and film her and take her fingerprints.
When she refused on 14 July to sign a charge
sheet, the police officer who will be the
main prosecution witness at her trial, Eliaves
Hernández, said: "It does not
matter, you will be tried all the same."
While detained, Gutiérrez received
a visit from the head of the intelligence
services, who told that, as he could not
try her for political reasons, he would
find any other pretext for bringing her
to trial.
When Gutiérrez tried to find a lawyer,
the state legal aid lawyer on duty that
day told her that, since the main prosecution
witness was a member of the National Revolutionary
Police, she had no chance of finding a lawyer
to defend her and that there would be no
point anyway.
Gutiérrez faces a sentence ranging
from a fine to one or two years of house
arrest. "If I get house arrest, I will
not be able to continue my journalistic
activities, as my hands will be completely
tied," she told Reporters Without Borders.
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