6 July 2007
Call for imprisoned journalists to be released on medical grounds
Reporters Without Borders voiced concern today about the health and
safety of Cuba's imprisoned journalists, especially Normando Hernández
González, the editor of the Colegio de Periodistas Independientes de
Camagüey, an independent news agency, who is still waiting for the
special medical release his wife requested for him a year ago because of
his poor health.
This concern is heightened by the news of the death on 24 June of
47-year-old dissident Manuel Acosta in Cienfuegos provincial prison, in
the centre of the country, where he had been held for three days for
"pre-criminal dangerousness." The authorities said he killed himself.
"How long do the Cuban authorities plan to keep people in prison for
working as journalists whose state of health has become incompatible
with imprisonment?" Reporters Without Borders asked. "Are they waiting
for Hernández to try to take his own life before finally giving him the
special release on health grounds that he has been demanding for the
past year."
The press freedom organisation added: "Subjecting ailing people to such
treatment, or rather lack of treatment, is to kill them slowly. The
gesture we are waiting for from the authorities is not a political one.
It is purely humanitarian. The dialogue which Spanish foreign minister
Miguel Ángel Moratinos has begun with the Cuban government should focus
on this emergency situation."
The state of health of Hernández, who is serving a 25-year sentence
imposed during the "Black Spring" crackdown of March 2003, is becoming
more and more alarming, says his wife, Yaraí Reyes. She found him in
very poor shape when she visited him on 21 June. He weighed just 53
kilos. His ailments include severe intestinal problems that prevent him
eating normally. He also has tuberculosis for which he is not getting
the necessary treatment. He has refused to eat several times since 4
March. Reyes requested a special medical release permit on his behalf on
7 July 2006. Without success.
Pedro Argüelles Morán, a journalist serving a 20-year prison sentence,
went on hunger strike on 16 June for the right to have the medicines
which his family bring him. He was arrested in 2003 at his home in the
central city of Ciego de Ávila, where he ran the Cooperativa Avileña de
Periodistas Independientes (CAPI), a cooperative of independent journalists.
The prison authorities on the southwestern Isla de la Juventud have been
refusing to give independent journalist Fabio Prieto Llorente the
treatment he needs for serious pulmonary complications since 10 June.
His family says he was hospitalised in May with acute pains in the chest
and back and low blood pressure, but the authorities returned him to
prison before he had completed all the necessary medical tests. Prieto,
who is from Isla de la Juventud, has been serving a 20-year sentence
since the "Black Spring."
José Ubaldo Izquierdo Hernández of the Grupo de Trabajo Decoro news
agency is currently in Guanajay prison in Havana province, where he is
serving a 16-year sentence imposed in 2003. He is in very poor health
and was hospitalised for two weeks in February for circulation problems
that caused severe cramping. The doctors prescribed a strict diet that
excluded the standard prison food. The prison authorities ignored their
recommendation.
Independent journalist Víctor Rolando Arroyo Carmona has been waiting
for months for a dentist to repair two broken teeth. After repeated
requests, the prison authorities let him have a mouth X-ray but nothing
else, his wife, Elsa González, said. He also has high blood pressure but
the prison authorities claim they do not have a way to measure it.
Arrested on 18 March 2003 at his home in the western city of Pinar del
Río, Arroyo is serving a 26-year sentence (one of the longest imposed on
a journalist).
The health of José Luis García Paneque, the head of Libertad, an
independent news agency based in the eastern town of Las Tunas, has also
deteriorated in prison. Held in Las Mangas, near his home town, he was
taken to a hospital in Bayamo with severe abdominal pains in June and
doctors reportedly found a kidney cyst. His weight has fallen from 86 to
50 kilos because of an intestinal ailment. He has been serving a 24-year
sentence since 2003.
Pablo Pacheco Avila, a journalist with the CAPI cooperative who has seen
serving a 20-year sentence since April 2003, was returned to prison on 9
June 2006 after 52 days of intensive treatment in the Ciego de Ávila
provincial hospital. He was hospitalised again on 26 April of this year
for surgery to his right knee.
A political and trade union activist and correspondent in Colón (in
Matanzas province) for the news agency Patria, Iván Hernández Carrillo,
began a hunger strike on 25 June in "Guamajal Hombres" prison because he
is being mistreated by his guards. He is serving a 25-year sentence.
Cuba's prisons are currently holding 25 dissident journalists, 20 of
whom were arrested during the "Black Spring" and were given sentences
ranging from 14 to 27 years in jail. After China, Cuba has been the
world's second biggest prison for journalists since 2003.
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