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González Pérez judicially
harassed for more than 50 days
Reporters
Without Borders,
September 12, 2005.
Reporters Without Borders voiced great
concern today about the plight of journalist
Oscar Mario González Pérez
of the Grupo de Trabajo Decoro independent
news agency, who is still awaiting trial
more than 50 days after his arrest on 22
July in Havana.
"González has been held in
four different police stations since his
arrest and still does not know what will
become of him," the press freedom organisation
said. "Is this a new method the Cuban
authorities are using to break a dissident
? It is just as absurd as arrest without
good reason and constitutes harassment,
especially as the victim is a 61-year-old
man in frail health."
Reporters Without Borders added : "We
reiterate our call for the unconditional
release of González and all the other
dissidents who have been unjustly imprisoned."
González was arrested at part of
a round-up of 33 dissidents on the eve of
a planned protest outside the French embassy
against the "normalisation" of
relations between Cuba and the European
Union.
Twenty-four have since been released while
three of the remaining nine have been charged
under Law 88 of 15 March 1999, which claims
to protect "Cuba's national independence
and economy. González is one of the
three. The other two are lawyer René
Gómez Manzano and political activist
Julio César López. They face
up to 20 years in prison.
A Havana judge announced on 27 July that
González was to be prosecuted but
no date has even been set for a trial. After
being detained initially at a National Revolutionary
Police unit in the district of San Agustín,
he has been held in three other police stations
in the Havana districts of Marianao, La
Lisa and 10 de Octubre.
The Miami-based news agency Cubanet on
8 September quoted his wife, Mirtha Wong,
as saying he has lost six kilos since his
arrest and is having trouble sleeping. She
was able to see him recently and give him
some reading material.
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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