21681: (Hermantin)Miami-Herald-Cuba, Haiti called perilous to press (fwd)

[Bob Corbett <corbetre@webster.edu>]

From: leonie hermantin <lhermantin@hotmail.com>

Posted on Tue, May. 04, 2004



Cuba, Haiti called perilous to press
The Committee to Protect Journalists said Cuba and Haiti were among the 10
most dangerous places for journalists. Iraq topped the list.
BY NAYIVA BLANCO
nblanco@herald.com

JOURNALISM

Cuba and Haiti are among the 10 worst places to be a journalist, according
to a report by the Committee to Protect Journalists.

The report lists the 10 countries where freedom of the press is most
threatened. Cuba is called the most hazardous place to practice journalism
in the Western Hemisphere, followed by Haiti.

Cuba was outranked only by Iraq in the group's list.

In Cuba, 29 independent journalists who were imprisoned last year after a
crackdown are being harassed and exposed to psychological torture and
inhumane conditions, the report said. Jailed journalists have complained of
receiving bad medical attention and rotten food and of being kept in
solitary confinement.

''Cuba is the black hole of the American continent,'' said Ricardo Trotti,
press freedom director of the Inter American Press Association. ``It is a
country outside the concept of freedom of expression. . . . The simple fact
of writing news in an environment where the government can send you to jail
is not common.''

Trotti and the CPJ report said journalists who remain free are intimidated
by state authorities, who have warned them to stop writing.

In Haiti, according to CPJ, which is based in New York, journalism became
dangerous after violence erupted last fall after the murder of a well-known
gang leader.

This year, during the February rebellion that toppled President
Jean-Bertrand Aristide, local and foreign journalists and media buildings
were attacked. A Spanish TV correspondent was shot to death and a U.S.
photographer was wounded while covering a rally in Port-au-Prince
celebrating the end of Aristide's regime.

A freelance U.S. reporter in Haiti, Michael Deibert, said local and foreign
journalists' cars were hijacked and their equipment destroyed, and reporters
were fired on by pro-government gangs during Aristide's final days in power.

But since March the situation in Haiti appears to have improved.

''They have better conditions to work under right now,'' said Pierre
Esperance, director of the National Coalition for Haitian Rights.

The CPJ report says the world's worst place for journalists is Iraq, where
25 journalists have died since the U.S. invasion last year and 12 Iraqi
journalists have been killed this year.

The greatest risks to reporters in Iraq include ''banditry, gunfire and
bombings'' and a new threat by rebels who are ''systematically targeting
foreigners, including journalists, and Iraqis who work for them,'' said the
CPJ report.

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