Dissident Cuban journalist Albert Santiago Du Bouchet, who had been in jail since 2009 for defamation, was freed by the Cuban authorities and exiled to Spain, the Committee to Protect Journalists (CPJ) reports. The government had already released the journalists who were among the 52 dissidents jailed during the 2003 “Black Spring” crackdown.
While CPJ and Reporters without Borders (RSF) celebrated the release, the organizations criticized the government for forcing Du Bouchet into exile against his wishes.
Now there are no Cuban journalists currently jailed on the island, but the government has continued its policy of short-term arrests for dissidents. According to RSF, Spanish filmmaker Carlos Hernando, who made a documentary on Cuban dissident journalist Guillermo Fariñas, was detained for five hours and ordered to leave the country for “counter-revolutionary activity.”
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Note from the editor: This story was originally published by the Knight Center’s blog Journalism in the Americas, the predecessor of LatAm Journalism Review.
