New Crackdown On Press Underway In Cuba, Rights Groups Say

By: Mark Fitzgerald Almost three years after the notorious mass arrests and show trials of 75 independent journalists, librarians and others, Fidel Castro's Cuba is once more cracking down harshly on the nation's tiny independent press, free-press groups say.

In recent days, the alarm about a wave of violence, threats and official persecution against the press has been raised by such groups as the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) in New York City, the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) in Miami, and Reporters Without Borders (RSF for its initials in French) in Paris.

"This series of persecutory measures taken against dissident journalists could very well auger a new 'Black Spring'", RSF said in a statement released Thursday.

Black Spring is the name some have given to the crackdown unleashed on March 18, 2003 that ended with 75 people, including 26 independent journalists, sentenced in brief trials to prison terms ranging up to 25 years. By RSF's count, Cuba currently hold 24 journalists in prison, including those arrested before or after the 2003 crackdown.

Jorge Olivera Castillo of the news agency Havana Press was sentenced to 18 years in prison in 2003 but released for health reasons in December of 2004. RSF says he was summoned to a municipal court this Tuesday and told he could not leave the capital--though he has a U.S.-issued visa to come to America.

Olivera Castillo has been assigned to a "work center," and must report to a state agency that "enforces the country's official ideological position," RSF said. "If he fails to respect the court's conditions, he will automatically be returned to prison," the group said, adding that he told an RSF correspondent after the court hearing that he is determined to continue working as a journalist.

On Jan. 21 and again two days later, independent journalist
Elsewhere, on 13 February, the independent journalist Oscar Sanchez Mad?n was physically attacked by unnamed assailants, RSF reported. And on Feb. 17, he was threatened by the head of the Committee for the Defense of the Revolution (CDR), a government-sponsored organization that watches for signs of dissent in neighborhoods, for remarks he made to the U.S. government-operated Radio Marti.

Last weekend, the home of Gilberto Manuel Gonz?lez Delgado, director of the Notilibre news agency in Havana, was searched for two hours by a state security and two CDR members, the Miami-based Cubanet reported. They seized a typewriter and some documents, and warned he could be charged under Law 88--the catch-all "economic sovereignty protection" law used to prosecute the March 2003 arrestees.

A similar threat was made against independent journalist Roberto Santana Rodr?guez, who was summoned to a Havana police station and shown a file of some of his articles, RSF said.

Life inside prison has worsened for independent journalists, the free-press groups say.

On Feb. 10, IAPA reported that Guillermo Fari?as Hern?ndez, director of the independent news agency Cubanac&225;n in the central province of Villaclara, had begun a hunger strike Jan. 31 and was in rapidly deteriorating health. He started the strike to demand a right to information, including Internet access, IAPA said.

"We regret that in the age of electronic media that one needs to resort to a hunger strike to bring attention to the lack of and restrictions to freedom of expression, of the press, and to the right of citizens to seek and receive information," said Gonzalo Marroqu?n, chairman of IAPA's free-press committee and editor of the Guatemala daily Prensa Libre. "We hold the Cuban authorities responsible for the journalist's fate."

Not even non-Cuban journalists and news organizations are immune from the recent crackdown.

CPJ reported Tuesday that Argentine writer and newspaper columnist Jos? Ignacio Garc?a Hamilton was prevented from entering the country by Cuban authorities who turned him back at Havana's Jos? Mart? International Airport and put him on a plane to Panama. Garc?a Hamilton, who had a visa from the Cuban embassy in Buenos Aires, had scheduled meetings with dissidents and independent intellectuals to publicize his new biography of Simon Bolivar. The writer had met with dissidents on two previous visits, CPJ said.

Castro's reach can extend even beyond Cuba's shores: On Feb. 7, four Miami-based broadcast journalists who went to The Bahamas to interview Cubans held in an encampment for illegal immigrants were roughed up by the guards, who confiscated some of their equipment.

Cuba is also tightening up on ordinary Cubans' access to information. On Tuesday, according to RSF, the government banned the sale of the Spanish newspaper El Pa?s and the popular magazines Hola!, Mec?nica Popular, and Muy Interesante "on the grounds that they are 'ideologically dangerous.'"

RSF said Cuban authorities should acknowledge that they are fighting a losing battle: "Nevertheless, no crackdown--however far-reaching--can ever completely eradicate the existence of an independent press in Cuba."