Guillermo Fariñas

New York, March 4, 2010—A week after the death of jailed Cuban dissident Orlando Zapata Tamayo, a journalist on a hunger strike is seriously ill while health conditions of imprisoned reporters remain dire. As the seventh anniversary of the massive crackdown on dissidents approaches on March 18, the Committee to Protect Journalists renews its call for the Cuban government to immediately and unconditionally release all jailed journalists.

July 31 marked a year without Fidel Castro, whose health remained a “state secret” even though it was the biggest story of the year. Cuba continued to prove itself one of the worst reporting environments in the world as three foreign journalists were expelled from the island and 24 Cuban reporters languished in prison.

New York, December 6, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists is outraged at the detention of one Cuban journalist for working for an independent news agency, and of a second for attempting to launch such an agency.

Police and state security forces swooped on the Havana home of independent journalist Ahmed Rodríguez Albacia on Monday, confiscating a computer, tape-recorders, a fax machine and several documents, a neighbor told the Miami-based news Web site Cubanet. Rodríguez Albacia, a reporter for the independent news agency Jóvenes sin censura, is being held incommunicado at the capital’s 100 y Aldabó police station, human rights activist Juan Carlos González Leyva told CPJ.

New York, June 6, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists expressed concern today at the worsening health of two independent Cuban journalists. Guillermo Fariñas, who has refused food for four months to protest government restrictions on Internet access, was still unconscious five days after emergency surgery to remove fluid from his left lung, his mother told CPJ.

New York, March 16, 2006—The Committee to Protect Journalists expressed concern today about the health of two independent journalists on hunger strike in Cuba, one of them in prison.

Guillermo Fariñas, director of the independent news agency Cubacán Press, has refused food for 45 days to protest government restrictions on journalists’ access to the Internet, and is in intensive care. Jailed journalist Juan Carlos Herrera of the independent news agency Agencia de Prensa Libre Oriental has gone without food for 13 days.