CPJ
concerned about journalists on hunger strike
Committee
to Protect Journalists.
September 3, 2003.
New York, September 3, 2003- The Committee to
Protect Journalists (CPJ) is deeply concerned
about disturbing new developments in Cuba's ongoing
incarceration of independent journalists.
According to family members, two imprisoned journalists,
Manuel Vázquez Portal and Normando Hernández
González, joined other jailed dissidents
at Boniato Prison in a hunger strike that began
on Sunday, August 31. The prison is in the eastern
province of Santiago de Cuba, where the journalists
have been jailed since late April.
In a move that may have been aimed at breaking
the hunger strike, Vázquez Portal was subsequently
transferred to Aguadores Prison, also in Santiago
de Cuba, according to family members. Meanwhile,
the whereabouts of Hernández González
are now unknown, according to his wife, who was
unable to get information about her husband from
Boniato Prison officials after the hunger strike
began.
Word of Vázquez Portal's transfer came
first yesterday when his sister, Xiomara Vázquez
Portal, visited the Havana headquarters of the
State Security Department (DSE) to inquire about
her brother. Subsequently, the journalist's wife,
Yolanda Huerga Cedeño, spoke with a prison
official at Aguadores Prison who confirmed the
transfer.
Meanwhile, Hernández González's
wife, Yaraí Reyes, told CPJ that she had
last visited her husband on August 28, when he
told her he would start a hunger strike on August
31. When she later called Boniato Prison for information
about her husband, prison officials refused to
talk about the matter. Reyes says she does not
know her husband's current whereabouts.
The journalists, who have been placed in maximum-security
facilities and are handcuffed any time they leave
their cells, have denounced unsanitary prison
conditions, inadequate medical attention, solitary
confinement, and lack of access to the press and
television. They have also complained about receiving
foul-smelling and rotten food.
In May, Vázquez Portal's prison diary
was smuggled out of prison. "Thank God my
family brought milk, otherwise I would have died
of hunger," he wrote. "My family also
had to bring sheets, a blanket, a towel, toothpaste,
a mosquito net, etc. Inmates here are only supplied
with a pair of shorts and a sleeveless, collarless
shirt."
Vázquez Portal was sentenced to 18 years
in prison for violating Law 88 for the Protection
of Cuba's National Independence and Economy, while
Hernández González was sentenced
to 25 years in prison for acting against "the
independence or the territorial integrity of the
State."
The two are part of a group of 28 independent
Cuban journalists who were detained in a massive
government clampdown on the opposition and the
independent press in March. Their one-day summary
trials were held in early April behind closed
doors. On April 7, courts across the island announced
prison sentences for the journalists, ranging
from 14 to 27 years. They remained imprisoned
in jails administered by the DSE until April 24,
when most were sent to jails located hundreds
of miles from their homes.
(For more background and related documents, read
"Crackdown
in Cuba".)
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