Cuban Journalist Threatened after Refusing Police Summons
By The Committee to Protect Journalists
HAVANA TIMES – Cuban authorities must end their intimidation of two community-media journalists, Amanecer Habanero director Yunia Figueredo and her husband, reporter Frank Correa, the Committee to Protect Journalists said Thursday.
Figueredo refused to comply with a June 23 police summons, reviewed by CPJ. On that same day she received three private number phone calls warning her that a police investigation had been opened against her and Correa for “dangerousness,” the journalists told CPJ. On June 16, a local police officer parked outside the journalists’ home told them that they weren’t allowed to leave in an incident witnessed by others in the neighborhood.
“The Cuban government must halt its harassment of journalists Yunia Figueredo and Frank Correa, and allow them to continue their work with the community media outlet, Amanecer Habanero,” said CPJ U.S., Canada and Caribbean Program Coordinator Katherine Jacobsen. “Reporters should not be threatened into silence with legal orders.”
Cuba’s private media companies have come under increased scrutiny from a new communication law banning all unapproved, non-state media and prohibiting them from receiving international funding and foreign training.
Amanecer Habanero is a member of the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and the Press (ICLEP), a network of six community media outlets, which has strongly condemned the actions of Cuban authorities against Figueredo, who became director of the outlet earlier this year.
In a statement, ICLEP said Figueredo has been the victim of an escalating campaign of intimidation by Cuban law enforcement, including verbal threats by state security agents; permanent police surveillance without a court order; restriction of her freedom of movement; psychological intimidation against her family; and police summonses without legal basis in connection with her work denouncing government.
Cuban authorities did not immediately reply to CPJ’s emailed request for comment.