Two months after announcing new controls on the foreign press in Cuba, the island's government has kicked out a reporter for The Chicago Tribune and given him 90 days to leave the island, the paper reported today.
Veteran journalist Gary Marx has reported from the paper's Havana bureau since 2002. The Tribune is one of a handful of U.S.-based news organizations with permission to work in Cuba.
''They said I've been here long enough, and they felt my work was negative,'' The Tribune quoted Marx as saying. ``They did not cite any examples.''
In the past month, Marx filed reports about young people's waning interest in communism, a debate among intellectuals who feared a government crackdown and a Catholic church activist. He also wrote about a string of Cuban doctors who defected.
In December, the Cuban government issued an 11-page document that updated regulations on the foreign correspondents based in Havana.
The document said the International Press Center in Havana may temporarily suspend or withdraw a reporter's accreditation ``when [the reporter] carries out improper actions or actions not within his profile and work content; also when he is considered to have violated journalistic ethics and/or he is not guided by objectivity in his reports.''
A flood of foreign reporters are expected to converge upon Cuba upon the death of Fidel Castro, who ceded power to his brother in July. When Castro first announced his illness, several reporters who lacked Cuban journalists' visas were turned back at the airport.
The Miami Herald has historically been denied both journalists' visas for reporting visits and Cuban permission to set up a bureau in Havana.
''We're very disappointed and concerned by the news that the Cuban government has decided to not renew our correspondent's credentials and has asked him and his family to leave the island,'' George de Lama, Chicago Tribune managing editor for news, told his paper.
``Gary Marx is an accomplished, veteran journalist who has consistently given our readers accurate, incisive and insightful coverage from Cuba, working under sometimes difficult conditions.''
The South Florida Sun-Sentinel, owned by the Tribune Co., also has a reporter on the island.
