Cuban journalist Fernández Saínz: I was a reporter in prison

[naaman fletcher]

went to prison for practicing independent journalism in Cuba. As soon as you get there, you must prepare yourself to narrate the horrors of the hellhole you've ended up in. And Cuban prisons are horrendous. But the horrors start not one step back in the penal tribunal, not two steps back with the police chief, but three steps back, with the Cuban penal code, which reflects the social decomposition of post-Soviet Cuba. The government's legal response to a wave of robberies (and to a similar wave of political unrest) is to make sentences more severe. Are they trying to punish the innocent? No, they want to "save the revolution," and since "the end justifies the means," toughness is expected from the police and from prosecutors, who are judged on their ability to quickly resolve cases; and from judges, who grow accustomed to handing down harsh sentences. In such a way, they get used to tough sentencing as they continue to lose their humanity.


When the accused is a delinquent and he's to be sentenced for a robbery he didn't commit, he accepts it, in acknowledgement of other robberies he did commit.

This was not the case of Orlando Almenares Reyes. Since he and I were both sent to Canaleta Prison in Ciego de Ávila, he sent me a very detailed letter. He had just been sentenced to 30 years imprisonment for the alleged assassination of a coronal, a state prosecutor in Cienfuegos province. At first I wavered. I though that he could be an assassin and that I could be lamentably losing both my time and my future readers. When in prison, home to the best in the business, your natural instinct is to distrust your sources, especially when they're talking about themselves. I saw him a number of times after that and he kept writing to me. I promised to keep reporting on his case, always insisting that my journalistic duty was to be skeptical and that I should be careful with my language on a case like his.

Months went by and the prisoner told me again and again that he was innocent, that he had never seen the victim, that he didn't even know if he was black or white, tall or short. That he had been accused by an informant that thought he was outside the country having illegally left Cuba, but he was brought back from Islas Mujeres (Mexico) and taken before the judge.

http://www.cpj.org/blog/2011/04/cuban-journalist-fernandez-sainz-i-was-a-reporter-1.php

What filthy, dirty men the Castro's are. I was reluctant to post this at first for fear that it was fascist propaganda but apparently one of our better informed posters thinks CPJ is reliable (http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=405&topic_id=50651&mesg_id=50651)