INDEPENDENT JOURNALIST, HELD FOR MORE THAN A YEAR, IS SENTENCED

CUBA: INDEPENDENT JOURNALIST, HELD FOR MORE THAN A YEAR, IS SENTENCED
2007-07-08. www.cpj.org, 6.07.2007

New York, July 6, 2007—The Committee to Protect Journalists condemns the
15-month prison sentence given Tuesday to independent Cuban journalist
Armando Betancourt Reina on charges of public disorder. Betancourt Reina
had been held without charge in a prison in the central city of Camagüey
since May 2006.

A Camagüey court sentenced Betancourt Reina, a reporter for the
independent news agency Nueva Prensa Cubana, after a five-hour trial,
according to press reports. According to the Miami-based news Web site
Bitácora Cubana, Mercedes Boudet Silva, the journalist's wife, said her
husband was returned to the Cerámica Roja Prison in Camagüey, where he
has been held for more than 13 months. Boudet Silva said the time the
journalist already served would count toward the sentence, Bitácora
Cubana reported.

Betancourt Reina was detained on May 23, 2006, while covering the
eviction of poor families from their homes, members of his family told
CPJ. Local police told the family that the journalist was arrested for
participating in a protest against the eviction, although sources in
Camagüey told CPJ that the claim was untrue. According to Boudet Silva,
authorities told her lawyer in November that Betancourt Reina would be
charged with public disorder, but no charges had been filed until the trial.

"It is outrageous that Armando Betancourt Reina should have spent more
than a year in prison without charge for reporting on a story that the
authorities did not want covered," said CPJ Executive Director Joel
Simon. "It is doubly outrageous that he should now be convicted on a
bogus charge and sentenced to 15 months in jail. He should be released
immediately."

With 25 independent journalists in prison, Cuba continues to be one of
the world's leading jailers of journalists, second only to China.
Twenty-two of these journalists were jailed in a March 2003 crackdown.
Families and friends of many imprisoned journalists say that their
health has seriously deteriorated in recent months amid poor prison
conditions and insufficient health care.

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