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Police cannot find file
of ailing journalist held for past five
months without trial
Reporters
Without Borders,
December 20, 2005.
Reporters Without Borders today condemned
journalist Oscar Mario González Pérez's
continuing detention as "arbitrary
and absurd" after the Havana police
told his lawyer they could not find his
file. González, who writes for the
Grupo de Trabajo Decoro independent news
agency, has been held without trial since
22 July. He is currently in a state security
cell and his health is failing.
"The Cuban authorities originally
said they intended to try González
for refusing to stop working as a journalist,
and yet now they have indicated to his lawyer
and his family that there is no written
record of any charges", Reporters Without
Borders said.
"If there are no charges against him,
why deprive him of his freedom?" the
organisation continued. "It is just
as arbitrary to detain González as
it is to detain the 23 other journalists
currently held in Cuba, but in his case
there is the added absurdity of a non-existent
prosecution. Once against we call for his
immediate and unconditional release and
that of all his colleagues."
The Cubanet website reported on 16 December
that his lawyer, Amelia Rodríguez,
was unable to see her client's file when
she went to the Technical Investigations
Department (DTI) in Havana, where he is
currently being held. His wife, Mirtha Wong,
said she heard the political police say
several times that the file did not exist.
However, a Havana judge told González
on 27 July, five days after he was arrested,
that he would be tried under Law 88, which
"protects Cuba's national independence
and economy." This law, which provides
for prison sentences of up to 20 years,
was used to convict the dissidents arrested
in the spring 2003 crackdown, including
27 journalists. Twenty of them are still
detained, serving terms of between 14 and
27 years.
González was arrested on the eve
of a planned demonstration by dissidents
in which was to have participated. Since
then he has been moved five times, from
one police station to another and finally
to the premises shared by the State Security
Directorate and the DTI. Aged 61, he has
been put in a filthy, two-metre cell with
three non-political detainees. According
to his wife, he is let out of the cell for
only half an hour a day.
Another journalist, Roberto de Jésus
Guerra Pérez, who was arrested on
13 July and who has also not been tried,
is being held at the same centre.
Three of the journalists who have been
in prison since March 2003 also worked for
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).
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