(RSF/IFEX) – RSF welcomes the 2 March 2005 release of journalist Carlos Brizuela Yera, of the Colegio de Periodistas Independientes de Camagüey, an independent news agency in southwestern Cuba. The journalist was freed after completing a three-year prison sentence. “We welcome the news of [Brizuela’s] release and we hope he will be able to go […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF welcomes the 2 March 2005 release of journalist Carlos Brizuela Yera, of the Colegio de Periodistas Independientes de Camagüey, an independent news agency in southwestern Cuba. The journalist was freed after completing a three-year prison sentence.
“We welcome the news of [Brizuela’s] release and we hope he will be able to go back to work as a journalist without being harassed by the authorities,” the organisation said. “His release should not be seen as a show of clemency by the regime and we have not forgotten that 21 other Cuban journalists continue to be imprisoned for simply doing their job,” RSF added.
Brizuela was arrested and imprisoned one year before a major crackdown on the independent press in the spring of 2003.
“On 4 March 2002, he and a group of activists from the Cuban Human Rights Foundation wanted to pay me a visit in the Ciego de Ávila provincial hospital [in the centre of the country], where I had been admitted after a violent run-in with the police,” Cuba Press journalist Jesús Álvarez Castillo told RSF. Brizuela and eight other people were arrested and detained at the Holguín provincial prison, in southeastern Cuba. On 27 April 2004, a court sentenced the journalist to three years in prison for “disobedience”, “refusing to obey the authorities”, “disturbing the peace” and “insulting the president”.
“He says he is very weak,” Juan Carlos González Leyva, director of the Cuban Human Rights Foundation, told RSF. González received a phone call from Brizuela immediately after the journalist was released from prison. “He is suffering from skin ailments and says he has problems with his memory, even though he is only 30 years old,” González said.
RSF continues to campaign for the release of the 21 other imprisoned journalists who are serving sentences ranging from 14 to 27 years.
