(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the detention of Ahmed Rodríguez Albacia, 21, a member of the independent news agency Jóvenes sin Censura, who was arrested without charge by state security agents in Havana on 15 September. “Rodríguez’s detention raises the possibility of new arrests without trial like those of Oscar Mario González Pérez […]
(RSF/IFEX) – Reporters Without Borders (RSF) condemns the detention of Ahmed Rodríguez Albacia, 21, a member of the independent news agency Jóvenes sin Censura, who was arrested without charge by state security agents in Havana on 15 September.
“Rodríguez’s detention raises the possibility of new arrests without trial like those of Oscar Mario González Pérez and Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez in July 2005 and Armando Betancourt in May 2006,” the press freedom organisation said. “Rodríguez and his family have been the target of constant harassment in recent weeks and we call for his immediate release.”
RSF also pointed out that Cuba took over the rotating presidency of the Non-Aligned Movement at the end of its six-day summit in Havana on 16 September and, in so doing, undertook to ensure respect for human rights and civil liberties by member countries.
Rodríguez was arrested when he went of his own volition to the police station on Dragones Street in downtown old Havana, where he lives. The arrest was made by two officials from the Directorate for State Security (the political police), who had followed him there. His mother, Margarita Albacia, said the chief of police refused to give her any explanation or to let her see her son, simply saying that he was being questioned and would be back home in a few days.
On the morning before his arrest, Rodríguez had reported to the Cuban Human Rights Federation (FCDH) that members of the Committees for the Defence of the Revolution (CDRs), the Rapid Response Brigades, and of the Directorate for State Security had surrounded his house and had threatened to “smash the heads” of both Rodríguez and his mother.
Rodríguez and his family were the target of a similar operation organised by Directorate for State Security, the CDRs, the Federation of Cuban Women and the Communist Party of Cuba on 4 August, when a crowd of about 60 people blocked the entrance to their home and warned that “counter-revolutionary” meetings would no longer be tolerated there. Rodríguez enraged the crowd by shouting, “Long live human rights!”
Jóvenes sin Censura has been the target of constant harassment since its creation by a group of young journalists in September 2005. Two state security officials ordered the head of the agency, Liannis Meriño Aguilera, 21, to put a stop to her activities on 29 December 2005 in the eastern city of Holguín (see IFEX alert of 3 January 2006).
The regime has not let up pressure on the independent press and foreign journalists since President Fidel Castro’s hospitalisation and the transfer of power to his brother Raúl on 31 July. Some journalists from Non-Aligned Movement member countries were refused visas to enter the country in order to cover the Havana summit.
