23 September 1996 was the first anniversary of the independent news agency CubaPress, and director Raul Rivero and other journalists had planned an informal gathering to commemorate the event. Members of the Sistema Unico de Vigilancia y Proteccion, an umbrella group of various Cuban civic groups tied to the Cuban Communist Party whose main charge […]
23 September 1996 was the first anniversary of the independent
news agency CubaPress, and director Raul Rivero and other
journalists had planned an informal gathering to commemorate the
event. Members of the Sistema Unico de Vigilancia y Proteccion, an
umbrella group of various Cuban civic groups tied to the Cuban
Communist Party whose main charge is to police the civilian
population, threatened Rivero and other members of Cubapress with
violence if they did not cancel the meeting.
An official with the Sistema Unico de Vigilancia y Proteccion went
to Rivero’s apartment on the morning of 23 September and ordered
him to appear at the local municipal police station at noon.
Rivero went to the station at noon and was briefly detained. He
was ordered to cancel the meeting and was told that if he did not
follow the order police “would not be responsible for the violence
that would be generated against him (Rivero).”
Telephone service to Rivero’s apartment, as well as his entire
building and the immediate neighbourhood, was cut off earlier that
morning. And, as of 24 September, he remains incommunicado.
In addition, his apartment was under constant surveillance since
the early morning hours of 23 September by members of the Sistema
Unico de Vigilancia y Proteccion, who occupied a government
warehouse next door to Rivero’s building. The same official who
threatened him during the noon detention returned to Rivero’s
apartment to repeat the threat at 19:30 hours, after some members
of CubaPress and acquaintances of Rivero showed up at the
apartment unaware that the gathering had been cancelled.
