Cuba: Prison guards brutally beat jailed Cuban journalist

["nello margiotta" <nellomargiotta55@virgilio.it>]

13 January 2004
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=9031

Reporters Without Borders has strongly condemned an assault against a
journalist who was brutally beaten by prison guards in the provincial
Guantánamo prison, eastern Cuba, and urged the authorities to punish his
assailants and to protect prisoners from further harm.

Victor Rolando Arroyo Carmona was taken from his cell by three prison guards
on 31 December and dragged to room where they beat him about the face and
body. They also deliberately shut his leg in a door. He told his wife Elsa
González Padrón in a telephone call on 7 January that he was still suffering
from the after effects of the attack.

"It is the second time in a month that a jailed journalist has been
attacked," said Robert Ménard, secretary general of Reporters Without
Borders. "The Cuban authorities are responsible for the state of health of
the 30 journalists imprisoned in Cuba for having exercised their right to
freedom of opinion as guaranteed by several international treaties ratified
by this country."

The journalist was attacked after complaining about being transferred to
Building 4B of the prison where 235 common-law prisoners are locked up in
appalling conditions. Common-law prisoners are often made use of by the
authorities to harass political prisoners.

The journalist's wife said she was also very concerned about the state of
health of her husband who suffers from heart and liver problems and whose
blood pressure is unstable. He was put in solitary confinement during the
summer of 2003 for protesting against ill treatment meted out to another
prisoner.

Another independent imprisoned journalist Juan Adolfo Fernández Saínz was
physically attacked by a common-law prisoner on 6 December as he tried to
dissuade him from beating a fellow prisoner. No action was taken against his
assailant.

Arroyo Carmona was arrested with 26 other independent journalists and 50
other dissidents in an unprecedented crackdown in March 2003. They were
sentenced to terms from six to 28 years in prison.