Español: Periodistas negados permiso de emigrar
Country/Topic: Cuba
Date: 19 November 2007
Source: Inter American Press Association (IAPA)
Person(s): Luis Esteban Espinosa Echemendía, Abel Escobar Ramírez,
Normando Hernández, Luis Guerra Juvier
Target(s): journalist(s)
Type(s) of violation(s): harassed
Urgency: Threat
(IAPA/IFEX) - The following is a 16 November 2007 IAPA press release:
IAPA calls on Cuban government to let independent journalists go
Miami (November 16, 2007) - The Inter American Press Association (IAPA)
today qualified as inhumane and repressive the Cuban government's
refusal to grant exit visas to independent journalists who have resident
permits in other countries.
IAPA's chairman of the Committee on Freedom of the Press and
Information, Gonzalo Marroquín, called on the government in Havana "to
halt the persecution of all those who have views that differ from the
official line and allow to leave the country those who, thanks to the
compassion of other governments, have obtained permits to live in
certain other countries."
One of the most recent cases involved journalist Luis Esteban Espinosa
Echemendía, who was notified on November 7 that he would not be allowed
to leave the country despite having been granted in August a Swiss
residence visa. Espinosa Echemendía, 21, is a reporter with the Jóvenes
Sin Censura (Youth Without Censorship) news agency and spokesman for the
Council of Human Rights Rapporteurs of Cuba. Several months earlier he
had been warned by a State Security official that if he did not
cooperate with the authorities he would not be allowed to emigrate legally.
The same thing happened to Abel Escobar Ramírez, of the Cubanet agency,
who was granted political refugee status by the United States but was
told on September 7 by a State Security official that because of his
work as a reporter he was denied permission to leave the country; his
wife and daughters were given such permission.
Marroquín, editor of the Guatemala City, Guatemala, newspaper Prensa
Libre, recalled also that the hemispheric free press organization has
been demanding "the immediate release from prison of the 27 independent
journalists remaining behind bars, in particular of 10 of them who are
in poor health and to whom parole has been refused".
A report on Cuba presented to the IAPA's General Assembly in Miami last
month spoke of, among other issues, the plight of Normando Hernández,
who, due to his serious health condition, was transferred on September
14 from the Kilo 7 prison in Camagüey, where he was serving a 25-year
term, to the Carlos J. Finlay Military Hospital in Havana. The Costa
Rican government had in April this year granted Hernández, who belongs
to the Camagüey Independent Journalists Guild, and his family a
humanitarian visa, which to date has not been acknowledged by the Cuban
authorities.
The report, which is posted on the Web site http://www.sipiapa.org ,
complained that four other journalists, released from prison on
humanitarian grounds and who hold refugee visas from the United States,
have not been given final permission to leave Cuba.
A similar thing is happening to journalist Luis Guerra Juvier and his
wife, both admitted to the United States refugee program, from whom the
authorities withdrew permission to leave the country nearly two years
ago without giving any explanation for their action. In a letter sent to
the IAPA, Guerra Juvier declared, "I feel kidnapped" by the Cuban regime.
MORE INFORMATION:
For further information, contact Ricardo Trotti or Melba Jimenez at
IAPA, Jules Dubois building, 1801 S.W. 3rd Avenue, Miami, Florida 33129
United States, tel: +1 305 634 2465, fax: +1 305 635 2272, e-mail:
info@sipiapa.org, rtrotti@sipiapa.org, mjimenez@sipiapa.org, Internet:
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