(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Minister of the Interior Abelardo Colomé Ibarra, RSF protested the harassment of Raúl Rivero, director of Cuba Press and professor for the journalists’ association Sociedad de periodistas Manuel Márquez Sterling, which is not recognised by the authorities. “This new attack against the Sociedad de periodistas Manuel Márquez Sterling is […]
(RSF/IFEX) – In a letter to Minister of the Interior Abelardo Colomé Ibarra, RSF protested the harassment of Raúl Rivero, director of Cuba Press and professor for the journalists’ association Sociedad de periodistas Manuel Márquez Sterling, which is not recognised by the authorities. “This new attack against the Sociedad de periodistas Manuel Márquez Sterling is unacceptable,” stated RSF Secretary-General Robert Ménard. “Raúl Rivero is the victim of a relentless pursuit by the Cuban authorities,” he added. The organisation asked the minister to “put an end to the harassment of Raúl Rivero and his wife, Blanca Reyes” and “to stop pressuring the members of the Sociedad de periodistas Manuel Márquez Sterling.” On 2 November 2001, RSF protested the targeting of the association.
According to information collected by RSF, on 8 November, Blanca Reyes Castañon, Rivero’s wife, was summoned by the Havana police, under suspicion of trafficking in foreign currency. “I was summoned on a number of occasions. Last time they told me that if I did not appear I would be arrested. When I arrived [at the police station], an official asked me how much money I received from abroad, if my husband Raúl received money from the ‘New Herald’ [a Cuban opposition newspaper published in the United States] and if we distributed dollars to dissidents. Finally, they suggested that I should leave the country, together with Raúl,” Castañon noted. At the end of the interrogation, she was threatened with facing charges for the “illegal purchase of US dollars.” According to Rivero, this is yet another way of pressuring him.
Furthermore, on 29 October, a member of the Department of State Security (Departamento de Seguridad del Estado, DSE) prevented a class from going ahead at the association’s offices. An agent ordered Rivero to leave the premises. Soon afterwards, journalists Carmelo Díaz Fernández, Pedro Pablo Alvarez and Víctor Manuel Domínguez were also expelled from the association’s offices. On 26 October, the police demanded that Ricardo González Alfonso, director of the Sociedad de periodistas Manuel Márquez Sterling and RSF correspondent, stop the classes. On 12 October, two DSE agents came to the association’s offices to inform González Alfonso that the association’s 2001-2002 courses were prohibited (see IFEX alerts of 1 November and 25 October 2001).
Poet and former journalist for the government press, in 1989 Rivero left the UNEAC (governmental agency of Cuban writers and journalists). Two years later, he signed the “Letter by Ten Intellectuals,” a petition asking President Fidel Castro to release prisoners of conscience and implement significant changes in the socialist regime. Of the “ten intellectuals”, Rivero is the only one still living in Cuba. In 1995, he founded the independent news agency Cuba Press. Like all independent journalists, he has been the target of continuous harassment by the authorities. Independent journalists who refuse to fall in line are left with few options but to silence themselves, go to jail or flee into exile. Rivero has decided to stay in Cuba and on a number of occasions has rejected the only visa the authorities are willing to grant him, which would allow him to leave Cuba but not return.
