(RSF/IFEX) – On 24 April 2003, RSF activists were beaten by staff of the Cuban embassy in Paris when they chained themselves to the embassy railings, in the presence of several prominent cultural figures, to protest the imprisonment of 26 journalists in Cuba. Some 15 RSF protesters were attacked by Cuban embassy staff after the […]
(RSF/IFEX) – On 24 April 2003, RSF activists were beaten by staff of the Cuban embassy in Paris when they chained themselves to the embassy railings, in the presence of several prominent cultural figures, to protest the imprisonment of 26 journalists in Cuba.
Some 15 RSF protesters were attacked by Cuban embassy staff after the ambassador refused to accept a letter demanding the release of 26 journalists who were recently imprisoned for up to 27 years. Cuba has now overtaken Eritrea, Burma and China as the world’s biggest prison for journalists.
Following the ambassador’s refusal to accept their letter, the protesters chained shut the entrances to the embassy and handcuffed themselves to the railings outside. Embassy staff then beat up the organisation’s secretary-general, Robert Ménard, and the head of its Latin America desk, Régis Bourgeat.
The demonstrators wore masks and t-shirts bearing pictures of the jailed journalists and carried two banners, one reading “Cuba = prison”, and the other quoting one of the journalists, Raúl Rivero, saying, “I don’t plot, I write”.
Among those who came to express support for the jailed journalists were Cuban writers Zoé Valdès and Eduardo Manet, Spanish playwright and filmmaker Fernando Arrabal, French film director Romain Goupil and French novelist Pascal Bruckner.
RSF also released a letter it sent on 18 April to French Foreign Minister Dominique de Villepin, criticising France for not including in its policy towards Cuba the common stand adopted by the European Union (E.U.) making closer ties between the E.U. and Cuba conditional on allowing multiparty democracy and basic freedoms. The organisation asked the minister to step up contacts with the dissidents and their families and to give them more support.
RSF has several times called on the E.U. to suspend consideration of Cuba’s January application to join the Cotonou Agreement (that gives 77 African, Caribbean and Pacific countries EU aid and preferential trade terms) until the journalists are freed.
RSF activists occupied the Cuban tourist office in Paris for several hours on 4 April to call for the journalists’ release, symbolically turning it into a prison and saying the organisation would take further action if the arrested journalists were convicted.
Background Information
On 18 March, the Cuban government took advantage of the imminent United States (U.S.)-led invasion of Iraq to launch an unprecedented wave of repression. They arrested nearly 80 dissidents, including 26 independent journalists, accusing them of undermining the country’s “independence and territorial integrity” in collusion with the U.S. Interests Section (diplomatic representation) in Havana. The journalists were sentenced to prison terms ranging from six to 27 years.
Rivero, 1997 winner of the RSF-Fondation de France Prize, and Ricardo González, RSF’s correspondent in Havana, received 20-year sentences. All the journalists were given sham trials, in secret, expedited, with no right to defend themselves and involving pre-prepared evidence from undercover agents and neighbours accusing them solely on the basis of their opinions.
Before 18 March, four journalists were already in prison. Bernardo Arévalo Padron, of the Línea Sur Press news agency, was sentenced in November 1997 to six years’ imprisonment for “insulting” President Fidel Castro and Vice-President Carlos Lage. Carlos Brizuela Yera, of the CPIC news agency, and Lester Téllez Castro, head of the Agencia de Prensa Libre Avileña, were arrested on 4 March 2002 in Ciego de Ávila while protesting a police attack on a journalist from the Cuba Press agency. Carlos Alberto Domínguez has been held without charge since 23 February 2002.
The Cuban constitution bans any private ownership of the media. Because they cannot publish in their own country, about 100 independent journalists have relied on U.S.-based Cuban exile organisations to publish their articles, mostly on websites. Nearly 60 independent journalists have been forced into exile since 1995, having faced daily harassment from the authorities.
