Cuba

Imprisoned Cuban journalist Miguel Galván Gutierrez was released from jail and flown to Madrid on Saturday as part of a July agreement between the Havana government and the Catholic Church. Sixteen journalists jailed in the 2003 Black Spring crackdown have now been freed and exiled as part of the agreement. "Although I am currently fighting with some health issues resulting from a seven year-...

Reporter José Ubaldo Izquierdo Hernández was released from a Cuban jail and arrived Friday in Madrid, becoming the 11th independent journalist to be freed by the Havana government this month. “My colleagues and I warmly hugged each other upon arrival, sharing our happiness for regaining freedom and our sorrow for leaving Cuba,” Izquierdo Hernández told New York-based Committee to Protect...

Cuban journalist Alfredo Pulido López was released from jail and landed Thursday in Madrid, bringing to 10 the number of imprisoned reporters freed and sent to Spain as part of an agreement between the Catholic Church and the Cuban government. “I am extremely happy to regain my freedom, but I also feel sad for leaving my country,” Pulido López, left, told New York-based Committee to Protect...

Imprisoned Cuban journalist Mijail Bárzaga Lugo was released from jail and flown Thursday to Madrid, where he joined a group of eight of his colleagues freed and brought to Spain this week as part of an extensive release by the Cuban government, according to international press reports. Bárzaga Lugo, who was arrested in March 2003, arrived in Madrid with his family on an Air Europe flight around 2...

Six Cuban journalists who spent more than seven years in prison for their independent reporting and commentary arrived in Spain today in the first wave of what is expected to be an extensive release of political prisoners by the Cuban government, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ). Cuban independent journalists Léster Luis González Pentón, Omar Ruíz Hernández, Julio César...

José Luis García Paneque, Pablo Pacheco Ávila, and Lester Luis González Pentón, independent Cuban journalists imprisoned during the 2003 crackdown against the political opposition and the press, are among the five dissidents to be released soon and sent to Spain as part of an agreement between the government of President Raúl Castro and the Catholic Church, international press reports said. “We’re...

Cuba’s National Revolutionary Police (PNR) arrested Juan Carlos Reyes Ocaña, journalist on the small news agency Holguín Press on January 29 then took him to a police barracks to face charges of “insult”, “disobedience” and “illegal economic activity”. He was released the following day, but has started a hunger strike as he awaits his trial which could mean a prison sentence, Reporters sans...

A US federal judge has ordered the Cuban government and the ruling Communist Party to pay $27.5 million in damages to the mother of a journalist jailed since a 2003 crackdown on dissent. US District Judge Alan S Gold on Wednesday ruled in the case of Omar Rodriguez Saludes, who is serving a 27-year sentence in Cuban prisons that the judge described as "deplorable and degrading" in his 13-page...

Cuban dissident journalist Alberto Santiago Du Bouchet, a reporter for the Habana Press news agency, was sentenced to three years in prison on May 12, Paris-based Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has learnt. Arrested on April 18 on a charge of “disrespect for authority,” he had been transferred to a prison on May 10. RSF does not expect his appeal to be successful. “Hastily tried just two days...

Reporters sans Frontières (RSF) has called for the immediate release of Cuban independent journalist Alberto Santiago Du Bouchet, who was arrested after a verbal exchange with a policeman in Artemisa (in Havana province) on April 18. Du Bouchet, who is a reporter for Habana Press, an independent news agency, was previously jailed from August 2005 to August 2006 for a similar reason. “The brakes...