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REPORTERS
WITHOUTH BORDERS
Three
more journalists on hunger-strike
Reporters
Without Borders. 3 september
2003.
Reporters Without Borders expressed great concern
today about a hunger-strike begun by three independent
Cuban journalists - Manuel Vázquez Portal,
Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta and Normando Hernández
González - in Boniatico prison, in the
eastern city of Santiago de Cuba, to protest against
their conditions of detention. Since they started
the protest on 31 August, they have been transferred
to another prison in an unknown location.
"This is the second hunger-strike in the
space of a month by journalists jailed in Cuba,"
the press freedom organisation said. "They
are being held in very bad conditions. Most have
been sent to prisons hundreds of kilometres from
their families, sanitary conditions are dreadful,
food inadequate and medical care for ailing prisoners
is minimal."
It called on the authorities to immediately tell
the families where they had been transferred to
and to allow them to visit as soon as possible.
Vázquez Portal, of the Grupo de Trabajo
Decoro news agency, Hernández González,
of the CPIC agency, and Herrera Acosta, of the
APLO agency, as well as three political prisoners,
began the hunger-strike to protest against what
they called "unfair" and "inhuman"
treatment in Boniatico prison, including solitary
confinement, no access to TV or the press, their
distance from their families, dirty conditions
and bad food.
Yaraí Reyes, wife of Hernández
González, said the food was often rotten,
they had no electricity in their cells and were
being refused any medical care. Herrera Acosta's
wife, Ileana Danger Hardy, said the journalists
were also protesting against the disciplining
of one of them.
The three journalists, along with one of the
political prisoners, were taken to the new prison
on 1 September. Reyes said the aim was to separate
them from other prisoners and force them to end
the hunger-strike. She said she was "extremely
worried" that reprisals might be taken against
them.
Three other jailed independent journalists -
Mario Enrique Mayo, Adolfo Fernández Sainz
and Ivan Hernández Carrillo - began a hunger-strike
on 15 August to demand the right for chronically
ill prisoners to receive proper medical treatment
and suitable food. They ended the protest on 25
August when the authorities agreed to give Enrique
Mayo a proper diet. Fernández Sainz reportedly
lost 15 kg.
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