{"id":17528,"date":"2012-11-16T19:43:21","date_gmt":"2012-11-16T18:43:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/?p=17528"},"modified":"2012-11-16T19:43:21","modified_gmt":"2012-11-16T18:43:21","slug":"independent-journalists-hounded-and-arrested","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/media-news\/independent-journalists-hounded-and-arrested\/","title":{"rendered":"Independent journalists hounded and arrested"},"content":{"rendered":"

RWB<\/a> |<\/p>\n

Reporters Without Borders condemns a worrying increase in harassment of dissidents in recent months, which has yet again contradicted the intentions manifested by the Cuban government when signing two United Nations human rights agreements in 2008.<\/p>\n

Neither of these agreements \u2014 the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights \u2014 has yet been ratified.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hopes raised by the release of the \u2018Black Spring\u2019 prisoners in 2010 are fading,\u201d Reporters Without Borders said. \u201cThis renewed crackdown should be condemned by the international community, especially the Latin American countries, which must put human rights and freedom of information at the centre of their relations with Cuba as it seeks regional integration.\u201d<\/p>\n

Reporters Without Borders has also learned that\u00a0Jos\u00c3\u00a9 Antonio Torres<\/strong>, a correspondent for the government newspaper\u00a0Granma<\/em>\u00a0in Santiago, Cuba\u2019s second largest city, is considering the possibility of appealing against his conviction on a charge of spying but fears that his sentence could be increased if he does.<\/p>\n

Arrested in 2011 after writing articles about mismanagement of a Santiago aqueduct project and the installation of fibre-optic cable between Venezuela and Cuba, Torres was sentenced in July to 14 years in prison and withdrawal of his university degree in journalism.<\/p>\n

Calixto Ram\u00c3\u00b3n Mart\u00c3\u00adnez Arias<\/strong>, a journalist with the independent\u00a0Hablemos Press<\/em>\u00a0news agency, began a hunger strike six days ago in protest against conditions in Valle Grande prison, to which he was transferred on 10 November.<\/p>\n

Arrested<\/a>\u00a0on 16 September after writing about a cholera and dengue epidemic before the government had issued any statement on the subject, he is facing a sentence of up to three years in prison on a charge of insulting the president.<\/p>\n

Commenting on the case, Reporters Without Borders said: \u201cMart\u00c3\u00adnez has been detained for too long. We call on the Cuban authorities to release this journalist, who was just doing his duty to report the news.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hablemos Press<\/em>\u00a0journalists have repeatedly been the victims of threats and arbitrary detention in the course of the crackdown of the past few months.<\/p>\n

In one of the most recent instances,\u00a0Hablemos Press<\/em>\u00a0director\u00a0Roberto de Jesus Guerra Perez<\/strong>was interrogated and threatened for several hours on 8 November, a week after one of the news agency\u2019s reporters, Jaime Leygonier, was subjected to a similar ordeal.<\/p>\n

Enyor D\u00c3\u00adaz Allen<\/strong>, the\u00a0Hablemos Press<\/em>\u00a0correspondent in the eastern city of Guant\u00c3\u00a1namo, was arrested on the morning of 6 November and was held for three days while all of his work equipment (a computer, two cameras and a mobile phone) were confiscated.<\/p>\n

Eleven dissidents were arrested when they went to a Havana police station on 7 November to enquire about Yaremis Flores, a lawyer held on a charge of \u201ccrime against the state.\u201d They included the\u00a0blogger<\/a>\u00a0and political activist\u00a0Antonio Rodiles<\/strong>, who is still being held and is facing a sentence of three months to a year in prison on charges of resisting the authorities.<\/p>\n

The next day, when a second group of dissidents went to the police station to find out what had happened to their colleagues, 16 of them, including the blogger\u00a0Yoani S\u00c3\u00a1nchez<\/strong>, were arrested on charges of public disorder, \u201csocial indiscipline\u201d and activities \u201cdeliberately orchestrated by the US authorities.\u201d<\/p>\n

<\/object><\/p>\n

This was S\u00c3\u00a1nchez\u2019s second arrested in two months. She and her husband, independent journalistReynaldo Escobar<\/strong>, were arrested on 4 October and held for 30 hours when they went to the eastern city of Bayamo to cover the trial of Angel Carromero, a Spanish political activist accused of dangerous driving causing Cuban opposition activist Oswaldo Pay\u00c3\u00a1\u2019s death in July.<\/p>\n

The day after her first release, she wrote on Twitter: \u201cDuring my detention, I refused to eat or drink any liquid. This is the first glass of water that I am having on arriving home, for an oesophagus on fire.\u201d She also reported that she was mistreated, as a result of which one of her teeth was broken.<\/p>\n

The Inter-American Court of Human Rights announced on 12 November that it is requesting preventive measures to guarantee the life and physical integrity of S\u00c3\u00a1nchez and her relatives in response to the complaint that she brought before the court accusing the Cuban state of systematically violating her rights and freedom of movement.<\/p>\n

S\u00c3\u00a1nchez has been refused 20 foreign travel permits since 2007. On 8 November, the day of her second arrest, the Inter-American Press Association appointed her as the regional vice-chairperson for Cuba of its Press Freedom Committee.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

RWB | Reporters Without Borders condemns a worrying increase in harassment of dissidents in recent months, which has yet again contradicted the intentions manifested by the Cuban government when signing two United Nations human rights agreements in 2008. Neither of these agreements \u2014 the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights and the International Covenant […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,18],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-17528","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","6":"category-media-news","7":"category-latest-news"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17528","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=17528"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/17528\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=17528"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=17528"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/rinf.com\/alt-news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=17528"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}