Cuba Frees Imprisoned Journalist Rivero, an IAPA Director

By: Mark Fitzgerald Continuing an unexplained release of several journalists and other dissidents imprisoned after mass arrests in March 2003, the Castro government in Cuba on Tuesday released independent journalist Raul Rivero.

In comments quoted by The Associated Press, Rivero suggested his release, and Monday's freeing of journalist Oscar Espinosa Chepe and two other dissidents, was an overture by the Cuban government to the European Union. "This was a gesture to improve relations, little by little," he told AP. Another dissident, Osvaldo Alfonso Vald?s, was also released Tuesday.

Like the other released dissidents, Rivero, 59, had developed health problems in prison and was freed on medical parole.

Rivero was serving a sentence of 18 years. He was among 75 dissidents -- including 31 independent journalists -- picked up in mass arrests in March 2003 and accused of collaborating with the United States. After summary trials, all were sentenced to prison terms ranging from 14 to 27 years.

This October, Rivero was re-elected as a director of the Inter American Press Association (IAPA). Alejandro Mir? Quesada, publisher of the Lima, Peru, newspaper El Comercio, hailed the release as "a very pleasant surprise for the entire world."

"However, it is not enough," he added, "since nobody should remain behind bars under the pretext of having committed a crime for the sole reason of expressing his or her ideas or for criticizing the government of Fidel Castro."

Rivero was a former reporter for Cuba's state-controlled news media but in 1995 he founded the independent news agency Cuba Press. He has been regional vice chairman for Cuba of the IAPA Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information since 1998 and in 2000 launched the association's Web site on Cuba, www.informecuba.com. He has been a member of the IAPA Board of Directors since 2002.

IAPA noted that 28 journalists remain imprisoned in Cuba.

Paris-based Reporters Without Borders also welcomed Rivero's release, but added in a statement: "It must not be forgotten that Cuba's human rights record remains worse than it was before his arrest, and that the regime still controls the media and country with an iron hand."