Watchdog says Cuba detains journalists, rights activists

CNN January 29, 1999 Watchdog says Cuba detains journalists, rights activists

                  PARIS (Reuters) -- Cuban police have detained three independent local
                  journalists, two press photographers and several human rights activists this
                  week, the press freedom watchdog Reporters without Borders (RsF) said
                  Friday.

                  RsF, in a statement, also said that Dutch radio journalist Edwin Kopman
                  was expelled Thursday after being accused of giving money to a
                  "counter-revolutionary group."

                  RsF said Cuban photographers Santiago Martinez Trujillo and Angel Pablo
                  Polanco, journalist Nancy Sotolongo and several activists were detained last
                  Monday as they prepared to cover a demonstration in favor of human rights.

                  It said Maria de los Angeles Gonzalez, director of the Cuban Union of
                  Independent Journalists and Writers (UPECI), was detained Tuesday after
                  police searched her home and seized recordings and documents, RsF said.

Journalist Pedro Arguelles Moran was detained last Wednesday in Ciego de
Avila, it said.

                  RsF also said it was worried about the health of Jesus Diaz Hernandez, of
                  the Cooperative of Independent Journalists, who has been on a hunger strike
                  since he was detained 11 days ago.

                  According to dissidents, Diaz, 24, was sentenced last week in the northern
                  coastal town of Moron, to four years' imprisonment after being convicted of
                  posing a social threat -- a charge sometimes used against dissidents in Cuba.

RsF said it had asked the Cuban government to stop harassing independent
journalists and release those detained.

                  RsF, and Cuban dissidents, say two other independent journalists are jailed
                  in Cuba -- Bernardo Arevalo Padron, imprisoned in 1997 for six years, and
                  Manuel Gonzalez, held three months ago and awaiting trial.

                  Around 40 independent journalists, some former opposition or human rights
                  activists, work in Cuba, generally sending reports abroad for use on the
                  Internet. They are considered dissidents by the government which often
                  denounces them as "counter-revolutionaries" in the pay of the United States.