Czech model Helena Houdova briefly detained in Cuba

Czech model Helena Houdova briefly detained in Cuba

HAVANA, Jan 26 (CTK) - Czech supermodel Helena Houdova and psychologist
Mariana Kroftova were detained in Cuba on Monday when Houdova was taking
photographs of a slum in the capital of Havana, Reuters news agency
reported today.

The two women spent 11 hours in police custody.

Houdova, Czech Miss 1999 has lived for a second year mainly in New York
and Los Angeles doing modelling. At the same time she tries to raise
money to help children with social and health handicaps in nine
countries the world over.

One of its projects is the Sunflower foundation fund.

Houdova said that she went to Cuba to find out how she could help
children in the communist country.

She said that during their detention neither she nor Kroftova were
allowed to contact the Czech embassy.

They were released after they pledged in writing that they will not join
any "counter-revolutionary activities" in the country, Houdova said.

They were also ordered not to leave Havana until Sunday when they are to
end their stay in the country.

Cuban police also confiscated Houdova's film, but she said she had
succeeded in hiding the memory card from her digital camera in her bra.

"They screamed at us. We were afraid," Houdova said, adding "we grew up
under communism and know what it is like."

Czech-Cuban political relations have been frozen since the fall of
communism in then Czechoslovakia in 1989. The reason is the Czech
criticism of the ruling political regime in Cuba.

The Czech Republic has tried several times to push through the U.N.
resolutions criticising the state of human rights in Cuba.

Cuban authorities detained among others Jan Bubenik and deputy Ivan
Pilip who met local dissidents during their private stay in Cuba in 2001.

ms/mr
http://www.praguemonitor.com/ctk/?id=20060126E00481