March 9 2001. Reporters
Without Borders.
Journalist Manuel Antonio González Castellanos, 44 year-old Holguín
correspondent for the independent news agency Cuba Press, was released on 26
February 2001. Reporters sans frontières (RSF) is delighted for the
journalist, but notes that he should never have been imprisoned. RSF also asks
the Cuban authorities to release the last journalist still jailed on the island,
Bernardo Arévalo Padrón, who could, in principle, be conditionally
released, since he has served half his sentence.
Manuel Antonio González Castellanos, correspondent for the Cuba Press
agency in Holguín (east of the island), was arrested on 1 October 1998
and sentenced on 6 May 1999 to thirty-one months in prison for "insulting"
Fidel
Castro, in accordance with Article 144 of the Penal Code. During an
altercation provoked by the police, he held the head of state personally
responsible for the harassment he had suffered. Jailed in the Holguín
provincial prison, the journalist was transferred on 30 June 1999 to the high
security ("máximo rigor") prison in the same city, known as the
"cemetery of the living". On 3 March 2000, he was returned to the
provincial prison. On 26 June 2000, Manuel Antonio González Castellanos
was beaten by Captain Narciso Ramírez Caballero and put in solitary
confinement for ten days after protesting the confiscation of his personal
documents. He suffers from an umbilical hernia, for which he refused an
operation in prison, and respiratory problems. Manuel Antonio González
Castellanos announced that he would continue his work as an independent
journalist at the Cuba Press agency.
One journalist is still imprisoned in Cuba: Bernardo Arévalo Padrón,
founder of the independent news agency Linea Sur Press, sentenced to six years
in prison in November 1997 for "insulting" the head of state. He has
been eligible for a conditional release since October 2000.
In Cuba, where the Constitution stipulates that press freedom must "conform
to the objectives of a socialist society", only the official press is
authorised. In this context, some 100 independent journalists, grouped into
about twenty news agencies that are not recognised by the authorities, continue
to be subject to pressure. Pushed to the limit, eighteen of them chose the path
of exile in 2000. RSF calls for an end to the harassment of these journalists
and the official recognition of independent agencies. |
