IAPA Calls For Mass Editorials Urging Cuba To Free Journos By Mark Fitzgerald

IAPA Calls For Mass Editorials Urging Cuba To Free Journos By Mark Fitzgerald

Published: August 16, 2006 3:35 PM ET

CHICAGO With Cuban President Fidel Castro apparently on the mend but still ceding power to his brother Raul, the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) says now is the time for newspapers around the hemisphere to urge the immediate release of some two dozen imprisoned journalists, and an end to government harassment of the tiny independent press on the island.

IAPA is suggesting newspapers publish the commentary simultaneously on Friday Aug. 18.

"Given recent developments in Cuba ... the situation has worsened for the independent press in that country," IAPA President Diana M. Daniels, general counsel and corporate secretary of The Washington Post Co., wrote in the "Dear Colleagues" letter to IAPA members.

"We believe this is the time to heighten our pressure for the immediate release of the jailed journalists, most of whom are suffering from chronic health problems and abuse in the prisons," wrote Daniels and Gonzalo Marroquín, director of the Guatemala City daily Prensa Libre.

On Aug. 8, a week after the government announced that Castro had temporarily ceded power to his brother while he underwent unspecified intestinal surgery, Cuban authorities released one imprisoned independent journalist, Santiago Albert DuBouchet Hernández, director of the news agency Habana Press. He had completed a sentence of one year for allegedly resisting arrest.

Most of the remaining imprisoned journalists were rounded up in mass raids in March of 2003 that also swept up independent librarians, economists and other dissidents. Most journalists were charged with violating the notorious Law 88, a 1999 act providing long sentences for a variety of journalistic "crimes."

IAPA listed the imprisoned journalists, who are serving terms ranging from one to 27 years, as the following: Ricardo González Alfonso; Víctor Rolando Arroyo; Normando Hernández González, Julio César Gálvez; Adolfo Fernández Sainz; Omar Rodríguez Saludes; Héctor Maseda Gutiérrez; Mijaíl Barzaga Lugo; Pedro Arguelles Morán; Pablo Pacheco Avila; Alejandro González Raga; Alfredo Pulido López; Fabio Prieto Llorente; Iván Hernández Carrillo; José Luis García Paneque; Juan Carlos Herrera; Miguel Galván Gutiérrez; José Ubaldo Izquierdo; Omar Ruiz Hernández; José Gabriel Ramón Castillo; Léster Luis González Pentó Alfredo Felipe Fuentes; José Manuel Caraballo Bravo; and Oscar Mario González.

More information about Cuban journalists is available in English on IAPA's Web site.

Mark Fitzgerald (mfitzgerald@editorandpublisher.com) is E&P's editor-at-large

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