Journalist begins hunger strike after being returned to prison

Journalist Calixto Ramón Martínez Arias began a hunger strike yesterday, the day he was returned to prison at Havana’s Centro Alternativo de Procesamiento de Detenidos (alternative processing centre for detainees). He was protesting about the forced removal of opposition figures to the east of the country. State security agents arrested the correspondent for Hablemos Press on 25 May while he was covering a demonstration organised by dissidents in the capital. A week went past before the authorities gave any indication of where he was being held. He has since been put in solitary confinement. The re-imprisonment of Calixto Ramón Martínez brings to 25 the number of journalists being detained in Cuban prisons. We note however that two journalists, Iván Hernández Carrillo and José Luis García Paneque are among six political prisoners who have been moved to jails closer to their families. These two men were arrested during the “Black Spring” of 2003, along with the Reporters Without Borders’ correspondent Ricardo González Alfonso. “This is an import step but it is not enough”, said journalist Guillermo Fariñas, who had to be hospitalised as a result of a hunger strike he started last February to press for the release of political prisoners suffering ill health. We continue to demand the release of Cuban journalists imprisoned only for having done their job in defiance of official censorship.