Anna Bikont
Posted on 12/03/2005 9:40:58 AM PST by knighthawk
HAVANA (Reuters) - Cuban police detained a Polish journalist who met with dissidents in central Cuba and authorities were preparing to deport her, diplomats and rights groups said on Friday.
Anna Bikont, who works for Gazeta Wyborcza, one of Poland's most widely circulated newspapers, was being questioned by immigration police in Havana 24 hours after her detention about her meetings in communist-run Cuba, a Polish diplomat said.
"They took away her cell phone and her watch. She looked worried," said First Secretary Daniel Gromann, who attended part of the interrogation. Gromann expected Bikont to be deported on Saturday.
Cuban authorities declined to inform him of the charges against the journalist, other than violating immigration regulations, which require foreign reporters who enter Cuba as tourists to abstain from practicing journalism.
Bikont, who entered Cuba on a tourist visa with no press permit, was stopped by police outside the town of Sancti Spiritus on Thursday night, diplomats said. Her passport, air ticket and photographic film were seized.
A dual national Swiss-Italian psychologist who works as a journalist, Nelly Norton, was detained with Bikont, a Swiss diplomat said.
"They will expel them on the first plane," said veteran rights activist Elizardo Sanchez, president of the independent Cuban Commission for Human Rights.
His brother Gerardo Sanchez, 58, who was acting as guide and chauffeur for the two women, was also being held by police.
President Fidel Castro's government regularly expels foreign reporters who visit Cuba as tourists to interview his opponents without obtaining a Foreign Ministry visa for correspondents.
The detention of the two women was condemned by the Committee to Protect Journalists, an independent, New York-based organization that works to safeguard press freedom around the world.
"By detaining and expelling reporters, the Cuban government sends a message around the world that it does not tolerate critical reporting," CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper said. "We call on Cuban authorities to allow both foreign and Cuban journalists to do their work without harassment."
In May, two Italian and three Polish journalists who traveled to Cuba to cover a rare meeting of pro-democracy activists were deported.
"Cuba is one of the world's leading jailers of journalists, second only to China," the CPJ said in a statement. It said 24 Cuban journalists were in jail, most of them since a crackdown in March 2003 on the independent press and the opposition.
Ping
GW journalist? I’m curious wherever she will be deported to Poland or rather to Brussels where her loyalty belongs.
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