(RSF/IFEX) – RSF voiced outrage today over a 17 March 2005 attempt to implicate journalist María Elena Alpízar Ariosa, of the independent news agency Grupo de Trabajo Decoro, in an imaginary crime in Placetas, Santa Clara province, central Cuba. “This scheme bears all the marksof the Cuban political police”, the organisation said. “When they are […]
(RSF/IFEX) – RSF voiced outrage today over a 17 March 2005 attempt to implicate journalist María Elena Alpízar Ariosa, of the independent news agency Grupo de Trabajo Decoro, in an imaginary crime in Placetas, Santa Clara province, central Cuba.
“This scheme bears all the marksof the Cuban political police”, the organisation said. “When they are not in prison or under house arrest, Cuban journalists are often the victims of this kind of harassment. It is regrettable that yet again, the instigators of this kind of ploy enjoy complete impunity while a mere subordinate gets all the blame.”
Cubanet (http://www.cubanet.org) said that when Alpízar Ariosa arrived at her house at about 11:00 a.m. (local time) on 17 March and opened her door, she found a blood-spattered machete lying on the floor. Suspecting a trap by the political police, she did not enter the house. Instead she alerted her neighbours and phoned the local police, who failed to come to her house.
A group of dissidents reported the case to the National Revolutionary Police’s (Policía Nacional Revolucionaria, PNR) regional office and obtained an interview with a captain Julio of the State Security Department, who said he knew nothing about the incident. Bertha Antúnez, a member of the dissident group, phoned Santa Clara mayor Rubén Álvarez, who said he would order an investigation into the matter.
The dissidents then went to Alpízar Ariosa’s home, where a known PNR informer by the name of José Ramón Valdés Ortuela showed up and declared himself to be guilty of theft and of sacrificing a farm animal. Valdés Ortuela was subsequently arrested.
Three of the 21 journalists who have been in prison since a March 2003 crackdown on dissidents are members of the Grupo de Trabajo Decoro news agency. The three are Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez, Omar Moisés Ruiz Hernández and José Ubaldo Izquierdo Hernández, who are serving 20-year, 18-year and 16-year prison sentences, respectively (see IFEX alerts of 22 March and 13 January 2005, 30 August, 1 June, 21 and 10 May, 23 and 19 March, 26 and 14 January 2004, and others).
