In a letter to Cuban Minister of the Interior General Abelardo Colome Ibarra, Robert Ménard, RSFâs secretary-general, “protests the arrest of Ãngel Pablo Polanco, director of the Noticuba agency”. Noting that “Ãngel Pablo Polancoâs arrest is a serious press freedom violation”, the organisation asks the minister to “intervene, such that the journalist is released immediately”. […]
In a letter to Cuban Minister of the Interior General Abelardo Colome Ibarra, Robert Ménard, RSFâs secretary-general, “protests the arrest of Ãngel Pablo Polanco, director of the Noticuba agency”. Noting that “Ãngel Pablo Polancoâs arrest is a serious press freedom violation”, the organisation asks the minister to “intervene, such that the journalist is released immediately”.
On 23 February 2000, two State Security Department (Departamento de Seguridad del Estado, DSE) agents arrested Polanco. The journalist had published articles on the judicial proceedings against Oscar Elias Biscet, president of the Lawton Human Rights Foundation. Polanco was planning to cover the human rights defenderâs trial, scheduled for 25 February. On 22 February, Omar RodrÃguez Saludes, of the New Press Agency (Agencia Nueva Prensa), was detained for a number of hours, under similar circumstances. The Lawton Foundation is a human rights organisation, unrecognised by the Cuban government. Biscet is accused of “insulting the nationâs symbols”, “public disorder” and “inciting criminal activity”.
In 1999, Polanco was arrested five times (see IFEX alerts of 15 November, 10 September, 3 February and 29 January 1999). During that same year, fifty journalists were arrested and forty one were placed under house arrest. The majority of the arrests were carried out before the trial of an opponent of the government or before demonstrations by non-governmental organisations were scheduled to take place.
