Cuban Journalist Near Death Protesting Internet Restrictions

Cuban Journalist Near Death Protesting Internet Restrictions
Aaron Glantz OneWorld US

SAN FRANCISCO, June 10 (OneWorld) - The director of an independent Cuban
news agency is in critical condition after more than four months on
hunger strike.

Guillermo Farinas, who has refused food since the government took away
his Internet connection, was still unconscious five days after emergency
surgery to remove fluid from his left lung, according to the New
York-based media watchdog group Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ).

The head of an independent news agency called Cubanacan Press, Guillermo
Farinas went on hunger strike January 31. He has been in the hospital
for much of the time since then, receiving fluids and vitamins
intravenously.

"We are shocked and appalled that Guillermo Farinas has become
critically ill protesting the government's policy of depriving Cubans of
access to the Internet, something which should be theirs by right," CPJ
Executive Director Ann Cooper said in a statement.

Guillermo Fariñas
Guillermo Fariñas © Cubanacán Press / Committee to Protect Journalists
According to Farinas' mother who is a nurse, the journalist has suffered
kidney failure twice since the beginning of the hunger strike and
experienced a pneumothorax--a collection of air in the pleural cavity
surrounding the lungs. He also developed a blood clot after bleeding
into the pleural cavity, requiring him to undergo a minor surgery.

"I am ready to die," Mr. Farinas told another media watchdog group,
Reporters Without Borders, in February. "Fidel knows my position," he
said, referring to his demand that the Castro government end its ban on
independent journalism and allow the Cuban public unrestricted use of
the Internet.

Officials at the Cuban Mission to the United Nations in New York and the
Cuban interests section of the Swiss Embassy in Washington (Cuba has no
formal diplomatic relations with the United States) could not be reached
for comment.

According to CPJ, Cuba has jailed 25 journalists, more than any other
country except China. Many of them were picked up in a series of raids
in March 2003, while world attention was focused on the invasion of
Iraq. The Cuban government arrested at least 75 dissidents in the
sweeps, including 29 journalists who were given sentences from between
14 and 27 years.

Havana claims the dissidents arrested were American spies, carrying out
a policy of illegal intervention in Cuba officials say has been in
effect throughout Fidel Castro's 47-year rule.

Larry Birns, director of the Washington, DC-based Council on Hemispheric
Affairs, blames the arrests on James Cason, who headed up the U.S.
interests section in Havana from September 2002 to 2005. Birns told
OneWorld Cason traveled across Cuba handing out short-wave radios,
mimeograph machines, and money to human rights activists and journalists.

"These people were arrested and jailed not for expressing their opinion
but for taking money from the United States government, a government
that has repeatedly tried to assassinate Castro," he said.

In any case, Birns said, the journalists arrested aren't reporters in
the way most Americans understand the term because the Cuban government
does not permit an independent press.

"Some of these people who are self-designated journalists are not
journalists," he said. "That's because there haven't been many
opportunities for people to become journalists. You could write for
Granma (the government newspaper) and be pro-government, but there's no
such thing as an anti-government newspaper, radio station, or television
station in Cuba."

Those interested in distributing reports free of government censorship
resort to distributing pieces of paper to their neighbors, posting
notices on telephone polls, and sending out e-mails to interested citizens.

CPJ says those methods were building toward a freer press when the
Castro government cracked down in March 2003.

CPJ's Americas program coordinator, Carlos Lauria, added there is no
proof that any of the dissidents arrested took money from the U.S.
government.

"Two weeks after the detentions of the dissidents and journalists, they
were tried summarily without any access to lawyers. The trial lasted
just one day, they were behind closed doors and the Cuban government
never provided any proof [of their alleged offenses]," Lauria said.

"They are saying that these people are spies, but this is ridiculous,"
he added. "They were jailed solely for doing their job as a journalist.
This violates the most basic norms of international law, which gives
everyone in the world the right to seek, receive, and impart information
through the media."

CPJ is also alarmed by a report about the health of one of the jailed
journalists, Jose Luis Garcia Paneque. The organization says his
condition has worsened since his transfer in November from Havana's
Combinado del Este prison to Las Mangas prison in Granma province.
According to CPJ, he is suffering from severe intestinal problems and
internal bleeding.

His wife told the rights group he is not receiving adequate medical care
in the prison infirmary, and has been repeatedly mistreated by common
criminals.

Garcia Paneque, director of the independent news agency Libertad, was
sentenced in March 2003 to 24 years in prison. His weight has plummeted
in jail, and his wife believes he is suffering from malnutrition. In
November 2005, she requested medical parole but the authorities have not
responded.

http://us.oneworld.net/article/view/134584/1/