Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias was arrested while covering a demonstration organised by dissidents in Havana.
(RSF/IFEX) – Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias, an independent journalist who works for “Hablemos Press”, was arrested again by state security officials while covering a dissident demonstration in Havana on 25 May 2010. Another independent journalist, Carlos Serpa Maceira, and six other demonstrators were also arrested but, unlike Martínez, they were quickly released.
Martínez was due to be transferred to Camagüey the day after his arrest but his current location is not known. He had been released on 14 May after being held for three weeks in Valle Grande prison on a charge of “aggravated insult” at the time of his arrest by police on 23 April.
Reporters Without Borders is also concerned about the health of three journalists who have been held since the “Black Spring” crackdown of March 2003, when they were convicted on trumped-up charges of spying. They are Normando Hernández González (sentenced to 25 years in prison), José Luis García Paneque (24 years) and Juan Carlos Herrera Acosta (20 years). What became of the humanitarian gesture that the Cuban government promised as a result of the Catholic Church’s mediation?
