Ricardo González Alfonso

Throughout 2002, scores of journalists in Cuba were harassed, detained, threatened with prosecution or jail, or had their freedom of movement restricted. Some had their reporting materials confiscated or their phone communications disrupted. Often, the government prevented journalists from covering opposition activities, turning reporters back or even forcing them to stay at their homes under…

New York, March 19, 2003— In a harsh crackdown on the political opposition and independent media, Cuban authorities have arrested at least 10 independent journalists and 20 political activists throughout the country. The government has vowed to prosecute the detainees but has not yet specified under what charges. The arrests, which began on Tuesday, March…

During 2001, Cuban authorities continued to wield an assortment of repressive tools to silence independent journalism: harassment and intimidation; prison terms and threats of prosecution; detention; disruption of phone communications; and restrictions on the freedom of movement, among others. In May 2001, for the seventh straight year, CPJ named President Fidel Castro Ruz to its…

New York, October 24, 2001—State security agents banned an organization of independent local journalists from giving training courses and harassed some of its members, according to local CPJ sources. On the afternoon of October 12, two Department of State Security (DSE) officers came to the offices of an independent journalists’ association and warned its president…

New York, April 12, 2001 — Cuban authorities placed local journalist Ricardo González Alfonso under house arrest on April 9, according to the local independent news agency CubaPress. González Alfonso, 49, is the Cuba correspondent for the Paris-based press freedom organization Reporters sans Frontières (RSF). National Revolutionary Police (PNR) officers detained the journalist after his…

IN A COUNTRY WHOSE CONSTITUTION AND PENAL CODE specifically disallow press freedom, independent journalists continued to face repression from the Cuban government last year. Yet their ranks have grown steadily, and there are now about 20 independent news agencies in the country. In early 2001, a particularly courageous independent journalist saw the outside of a…

President Fidel Castro Ruz’s government did its best to stamp out independent journalism in Cuba this year, promulgating a bill that virtually outlaws free expression and perfecting preemptive repression. The Cuban constitution grants the Communist Party the right to control the press; it recognizes “freedom of speech and the press in accordance with the goals…