Cuba

(RSF/IFEX) – On 27 May 1998, Ariel Tapia, a journalist with the news agency Cuba Press, was ordered by the head of the Monitoring and Protection Unit (Sistema Unico de Vigilancia y Proteccion, SUVP) to meet with him. The SUVP is composed of officials from the Ministry of the Interior, the Committee for the Defence […]

(RSF/IFEX) – According to RSF, on 11 April 1998, Bernardo Arevalo Padron, who was sentenced on 28 November 1997 to six years in prison for “contempt” against Fidel Castro and Carlos Lage, the president of the National Assembly, was assaulted in the Ariza prison by two State Security agents. Arevalo Padron, founder of the independent […]

(CPJ/IFEX) – According to CPJ, Línea Sur 3 correspondent Bernardo Arevalo Padron, who was sentenced to six years in prison in October 1997, has been suffering from health problems since his confinement to a filthy cell in Ariza prison in Cienfuegos province. Arevalo has bronchitis and reportedly was treated twice for high blood pressure in […]

(RSF/IFEX) – According to RSF, journalist Juan Carlos Recio Martinez has been sentenced to one year hard labour without detention. He has been convicted of participating in “activities against state security.” **See IFEX alerts as noted** On 13 February, Recio Martinez, a reporter with the independent Cuba Press agency in the province of Villa Clara, […]

(RSF/IFEX) – In a 4 February 1998 letter sent after Pope John-Paul II’s 21-25 January visit to Cuba, RSF confirmed that journalists Lorenzo Paez Nunez and Bernardo Arevalo Padron were still detained. **Updates IFEX alerts of 16 January 1998, 17 October, 18 September, 21 August 1997 (Arevalo Padron case); and updates IFEX alert of 16 […]

(CPJ/IFEX) – Jorge Luis Arce Cabrera told CPJ that on 30 January 1998 he and his colleague Jesus Eofcoue Castellanos were threatened with imprisonment by a state security official at Acre’s home in Cienfuegos. Lieutenant Orebis Montes de Oca reportedly told Arce, Cienfuegos-correspondent for the Buro de Prensa Independiente de Cuba (BPIC), and Eofcoue, a […]

Below is the complete text of a letter which CPJ sent to President Fidel Castro regarding the cases of journalists denied visas to cover the Pope’s visit, and other pending cases. **New cases and updates. For background, see IFEX alerts of 16 January 1998, 17 October, 18 September, and 21 August 1997 (Arevalo Padron case); […]

(RSF/IFEX) – On 9 December 1997, Odalys Curbelo Sanchez, correspondent for the Cuba Press news agency in Pinar del Rio, was taken in for questioning by two counter-espionage agents and two State Security agents. After presenting Curbelo with an official document accusing him of “spreading information to foreign enemy radio stations, of illegally practising his […]

(RSF/IFEX) – Cuban journalist Raul Rivero has won the Reporters sans frontieres – Fondation de France prize for 1997. The award was to be presented to the director of the news agency Cuba Press at 11:30 am on 10 December 1997 at the Espace Electra, Paris. Rivero was unable to collect his prize in person […]

(RSF/IFEX) – On 25 November 1997, Odalis Curbelo Sanchez and Juan Antonio Sanchez Rodriguez of the Cuba Press news agency were taken in for questioning in Pinar del Rio by three State Security agents for having taken pictures of posters of Pope John Paul II that had been vandalised. During the interrogation, the journalists were […]

(RSF/IFEX) – On 7 November 1997, RSF reported that on 6 November, Maria de los Angeles Gonzalez Amaro of the Independent Press Agency of Cuba (Agencia de Prensa Independiente de Cuba, APIC) and Luis Lopez Prendes of the Bureau of Independent Press (Buro de Prensa Independiente de Cuba, BPIC) were held for a few hours […]

(RSF/IFEX) – On 23 October 1997, Jorge Luis Arce Cabrera, a Cienfuegos correspondent for the Bureau of Independent Press in Cuba (BPIC), was assaulted by an agent of the Ministry of the Interior who went by the name of Adriano. The agent showed up at the home of Arce around 3:30 pm and ordered him […]

(RSF/IFEX) – Hector Peraza Linares, co-director of the news agency Habana Press, was released on 23 September 1997 after having been detained for 92 days. However, authorities did not return to Peraza equipment – a computer, typewriter and camera – seized duing his arrest in June. **Updates IFEX alerts dated 16 and 2 July 1997** […]

RSF/IFEX) – On 8 September 1997, Omar Rodriguez Saludes of the New Press news agency (ANP) was arrested by a State Security officer who, after threatening Rodriguez, confiscated his camera and several documents. Rodriguez had been covering a religious festival. The same day, Odalys Curbelo Sanchez, correspondent for the news agency Cuba Press in Pinar […]

(WiPC/IFEX) – Poet Reynaldo Soto Hernandez was reportedly released from prison on 6 September 1997 upon completion of his three year sentence under the “dangerousness” law. **Updates IFEX alert dated 10 April 1996** Soto Hernandez, who was also a human rights activist and a journalist for the Cuba Press news agency, had been arrested in […]

October 1996 marks the first anniversary of the founding of the independent Cuban news agency Cuba Press. However, one of its correspondents, the award-winning poet and journalist Reynaldo Soto Hernandez, has been imprisoned for almost two years. Soto was detained around January 1995 and sentenced to three years in prison under the vaguely-defined “dangerousness” law. […]