Case List of Imprisoned Writers for 2009 (continued)
as prepared by International PEN Writers in Prison Committee
(Details current up to 30 June 2009)

AMERICAS
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ARGENTINA
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Threatened

*Daniel ENZ: editor of the weekly newspaper Análisis, based in Paraná, Entre Ríos, received a phone call threatening him and his family on 29 April 2009. The call, which was received by an administrative assistant at the newspaper’s offices, warned Enz not to get involved with a named local businessman. Enz had recently published an investigation that revealed that large amounts of money had been invested by the businessman, who is reportedly a former member of the Argentinian Air Force’s Cóndor Financial Administration Management in Buenos Aires. Enz’s report also mentioned that the military’s funds had recently increased above its official income. He reported the threat to the local police, which ordered protection for the journalist and his family, as well as surveillance of his home and the paper’s offices.

*Griselda GÓMEZ (f): writer and journalist for La Mañana newspaper, based in Córdoba, Córdoba province, was reportedly the target of two threatening phone calls on 15 January 2009. The calls were received by the paper’s security personnel minutes before Gómez arrived at the newspaper’s offices. The caller, who reportedly indentified himself as “Colonel Jiménez” and “Captain Gi.gena”, shouted and insulted Gómez, saying that “she knows what will happen (to her) because of what she has published.” Gómez said that she believed the threats were related to her work as a human rights activist and as writer rather than her work at the newspaper, where she writes for the ‘Entertainment’ section. In 2008, she published a book of poems entitled “Flores del Bien” (Flowers of Good) in honour of the grandmothers and mothers of the Plaza de Mayo (an association of women whose family members were disappeared during the military dictatorship). Gómez reported the threats to the Third Court of the City of Córdoba Tribunal.

BRAZIL
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On trial

*Renata MODESTO (f) and Marcos JUNQUEIRA: journalists for the newspaper Comercio da Franca. On 26 January 2009, the Court of Justice State in Franca, São Paulo state, informed the two reporters that it intended to comply with a prosecutor’s request to reopen proceedings against them for criminal defamation. The case dates back to December 2007, when the journalists were accused of damaging the honour of Franca’s chief of police. A Comercio de Franca report had alleged that the chief of police had insulted a police officer who was attempting to arrest a man accused of assault and thus abused his authority. The police chief began defamation proceeding against the journalists under the Press Law, which was enacted during the military dictatorship. However, this law was repealed in February 2008 following a Supreme Court decision and as a result the lawsuit was dropped. Notwithstanding, the public prosecutor’s office insisted that the case should continue and as a result it was reopened on 12 November 2008. Modesto and Junqueira reportedly intended to appeal the ruling.

Death threats

*Laércio RIBEIRO: editor of the crime section of the newspaper O Diário, Mogi das Cruzes, São Paulo state, reportedly received two phone calls threatening him and wife with death and was chased by someone in a car as he was leaving the newspaper building on 4 June 2009. The next day he received anther threatening call on his mobile phone and later reported the caller’s number to the local police. Ribeiro believes that the threats came from the CNH (Driver’s License) Mafia or the Nickel Hunt Mafia, as a result of reports published in the newspaper, and also suspected the local police chief, who is currently suspended, of being involved. According to Ribeiro, the police chief had recently been released from prison on parole and had promised that he would ‘settle scores’ with everyone”. The police dealing with the threats said Ribeiro would have to file an official complaint in order to allow police to begin an investigation.

COLOMBIA
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Imprisoned: investigation

*Miguel Ángel BELTRÁN VILLEGAS:Colombian academic.
Year of birth: c. 1965. Date of arrest: 22 May 2009.
Place of detention: Modelo prison, Bogotá, Colombia.
Details of arrest: Beltrán was arrested at the headquarters of the immigration authorities (INM) in Mexico City, Mexico, on 22 May 2009, after being informed that the visa for which he had applied in August 2008 had been denied. A few hours later he was flown to Colombia in an aeroplane belonging to the Mexican state. On arrival in Bogotá, Colombia, Beltrán was detained on the orders of the Colombian Public Prosecutor (Fiscalía General) and taken into the custody of the judicial and intelligence police (Dirrección General de la Policía Judicial e Inteligencia, DIJIN).
Charges: Beltrán was charged with being a member of the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC), which the Colombian government considers to be an international terrorist group. He denied the charges at an initial hearing on 23 May, which ruled that he should be jailed pending trial.
Prosecution evidence: The Colombian authorities say there is substantial evidence that Beltrán is a key member of the FARC known as ‘Jaime Cienfuegos’ supposedly responsible for writing ‘ideological material and articles’ for the FARC and other publications that allegedly support Colombian guerrilla groups. Beltrán is reportedly also accused of using his research at UNAM as a façade to recruit students and fundraise for the FARC. According to press reports, much of the evidence against Beltrán comes from documents and emails found on a laptop computer which allegedly belonged to the deceased FARC leader Rául Reyes, who was killed in March 2008.
Defence: Beltrán has admitted meeting Raúl Reyes and other known members of the FARC during peace talks hosted in Mexico and later interviewing Reyes as part of his research into the Colombian conflict. However, he has denied that he is ‘Jaime Cienfuegos’ or having any connection with the alleged emails between ‘Jaime Cienfuegos’ and Reyes, and maintains that he was in Mexico to undertake legitimate academic research. Beltrán says that he believes that he is being persecuted as part of a wider strategy employed by the Colombian government to criminalize dissent, including individuals associated with public universities. His colleagues in Colombia and Mexico have been vocal in their support, insisting that Beltrán is an established academic, not a terrorist, and suggesting that he is being persecuted for his leftwing political views.
Statement by President: Despite Beltrán’s denial of the charges against him, President Álvaro Uribe has publicly stated, including on the Colombian Presidency’s official website, that Beltrán is the FARC member known as ‘Jaime Cienfuegos’ and therefore a terrorist. The same assumption has been consistently repeated in the Colombian and international media.
Background: Beltrán has taught in several public universities in Colombia, including the Universidad de Antioquia and the Universidad Nacional in Bogotá, as well as in Mexico. He has won a number of awards for his teaching and has published widely in national and international journals. His academic interests include the analysis of social conflict and the political history of Colombia and Latin America. From August 2008 to May 2009, Beltrán was granted a sabbatical from the Universidad Nacional, where he has been an associate professor since 2005, to undertake postdoctoral research at the Universidad Autónoma de México (UNAM) in Mexico City.
PEN Position: PEN holds no position on Beltrán’s guilt or innocence. It has raised concerns with the Colombian authorities about irregularities that may affect the fairness of the trial, including President Uribe’s statement. It has also called for assurances that Beltrán is not detained solely for his political views.

On trial

*Ulilo ACEVEDO SILVA: director and owner of the newspaper Hoy Diario del Magdalena, reportedly appeared before an antiterrorist prosecutor on 17 March 2009 in relation with an investigation into his alleged links to a local paramilitary group. An arrest warrant had been issued for Acevedo, along with the president of a local football team and three politicians, on 20 February. Acevedo said that he had not responded to previous summons as he had been abroad. He was accused of having links with the ‘Tayrona Resistance’ bloc of the United Self-Defence of Colombia (Autodefensas Unidas de Colombia, AUC) paramilitary group which operated in the Magdalena region before its demobilization. The accusations were reportedly made partially on the basis of a September 2007 confession by a former paramilitary leader, who said that he had held meetings with Acevedo in order to support his political aspirations (Acevedo is known as a political leader and has stood as a candidate in local elections). Acevedo has reported being threatened on several occasions in the past and received protection from the government’s journalist protection scheme. In 2006, he reportedly received death threats while covering the infiltration of paramilitaries in local government in the Magdalena region that forced him to leave the country temporarily.

*Edinson LUCIO TORRES: internet journalist (author of the blog “Lucio y sus notas”) based in Cartagena, Bolivar, is on trial for allegedly defaming a senator. The senator sued Lucio Torres for criminal defamation in October 2006 after the journalist reported on his blog and radio programme that the congressman was one of eight people shown to have links with paramilitary groups. Lucio Torres, who is also the Bolívar head of the opposition Polo Democrático political party, reportedly based his comments on reports from national newspaper El Tiempo, theregional Ombudsman’s Office and a non governmental organization. The charges against him were admitted on 14 February 2008 and the Prosecutor’s Office subsequently ruled that Lucio Torres did not have sufficient proof for his allegations and had slandered the plaintiff. An initial hearing has reportedly been postponed five times without explanation, most recently on 1 June 2009.

Ernesto McCAUSLAND SOJO: writer and journalist for the daily newspaper El Heraldo, is facing a criminal defamation suit brought by the city council of Barranquilla, Atlántico department, for having published comments critical of the council. The charges arise from a 20 June 2008 column entitled “The Angels and the Carnival” where McCausland expressed concern that the councillors were using the Barranquilla carnival for their own political gain. The lawsuit was believed still to be ongoing as of December 2008.
Update: No further news as of 30 June 2009; PEN is seeking an update.
Background: McCausland has published two novels, Febrero escarlata (Planeta, 2004) and El alma del acordeón (Intermedio, 2006) and several collections of his journalism have also been published.

Alfredo MOLANO BRAVO: year of birth 1944, sociologist, author and journalist, is on trial for criminal libel (‘calumnia e injuria’) for a 24 February 2007 opinion piece published in the newspaper El Espectador that was critical of a powerful Colombian family. The piece, entitled ‘Araújo et al’, gives a brief account of the economic, political and social power from Colonial times until the present day of the Araújo family of Valledupar and Cartagena, Atlantic coast region, northern Colombia, and another family from the same region. It also alludes to some family members’ alleged involvement in contraband coffee and cattle trading, drugs trafficking and election fraud. The offending article was published at a time when investigations were being carried out into the alleged links between some regional leaders’ and paramilitary groups; these leaders reportedly include some of the plaintiffs’ relatives.
Charges: Soon after the article appeared, various members of the Araújo family from Valledupar brought a defamation suit against Molano before the Public Prosecutor (Fiscalía General). A hearing on 10 December 2007 aimed at conciliation between the two parties failed to bring about any agreement. The plaintiffs demanded that Molano retract the allegedly defamatory statements by writing a new article to be approved by themselves prior to publication; Molano refused, considering this to be an attack on press freedom. On 24 February 2008, he was charged with criminal defamation under various articles of the Penal Code, on the basis that he had alleged that the Araújo family was involved in illicit activities. The charges were upheld on 8 July 2008. The penalty for libel under the Colombian Penal Code is one to four years in prison and a fine, with provision for an increase if the libellous statement was disseminated in the media.
Trial: At the preliminary hearing on 12 August 2008, both sides proposed documentary and expert evidence and witnesses. Molano’s witnesses included a former director of the Administrative Department of Security (Departamento Administrativo de Seguridad, DAS) and a former president of the Colombian constitutional court. His defence had reportedly been unable to find any witnesses from Valledupar willing to appear, reportedly out of fear of reprisals. On 5 December 2008, the Araújo’s appeal against the evidence requested by the defence was overturned.
New information: After a number of postponements, the verdict is reportedly due on 15 July 2009. Meanwhile, two members of the Araújo family, both close relatives of the plaintiffs in Molano’s case, Álvaro Araújo Noguera (a former governor of César department) and his son Álvaro Araújo Castro (a former senator), have been tried for kidnapping. Both were exonerated but Araújo Castro remains imprisoned for suspected links to paramilitary groups.
Background: Molano is the author of around a dozen books and innumerable articles published in, among others, El Espectador and leading magazines Semana and Cromos. His books include Trochas y fusiles (1994), El Tapon del Darien: Diario de una travesia (1996) and Desterrados: Crónicas del desarraigo (2001).

Alejandro SANTOS RUBINO: director of the national weekly newsmagazine Semana, is on trial for allegedly defaming Judge José Alfredo Escobar Araújo, former president of Colombia’s Superior Council of the Judiciary. Escobar claims that Semana and Santos, as the magazine’s director, damaged his honour and reputation and invaded his privacy in a 28 April 2008 article that described the close friendship between an individual with alleged ties to drug trafficking and various public personalities, including Escobar. On 11 August 2008, a Bogotá judge ruled in favour of Escobar and ordered Semana to print a correction. The magazine did so but on 12 September, the Superior Tribunal of Bogotá’s Judicial District ruled that that the correction was insufficient and ordered a second correction. Semana complied but reportedly failed to follow the exact guidelines specified by the court, which stated that the magazine should publish the changes on its front cover. As a result, on 20 November 2008, Judge Amanda Vargas de Norato of the Penal Circuit of Bogotá charged Santos with contempt of court and issued a warrant for his arrest. The judge ordered that Santos should be held for three days at the police precinct closest to his home or at the headquarters of the Colombian national intelligence service, the Administrative Department of Security (DAS), and to pay a fine of approx. US$1,200. The Superior Tribunal of Bogotá’s Judicial District was due to review Judge Vargas’ order within the following three days.
New information: On 25 March 2009, the 16th Bogotá Criminal Court again ordered Santos to be jailed for three days. However, on 31 March the Constitutional Court ruled that the corrections that the magazine had made were sufficient and overturned the sentence. In 2009, Santos has also suffered harassment by the Colombian intelligence agency Administrative Department of Security (DAS), which has reportedly been monitoring and intercepting his telephone and email account (see separate entry below).
Background: Semana has played a key role in exposing a series of scandals that have undermined the government of President Álvaro Uribe. In late 2006, the magazine published a series of investigative articles on the alleged links between far-right paramilitary groups and officials and politicians, as a result of which more than 50 politicians and officials were reportedly arrested.

Death threats

*José GRANADOS FERNÁNDEZ: editor of the judicial and investigations section of the newspaper El Heraldo in Barranquilla, Atlántico department. On 2 April 2009, an unidentified caller reportedly phoned the newspaper’s offices and threatened to kill Granados for writing about corruption in the Autonomous Regional Corporation (Corporación Autónoma Regional del Atlántico, CRA), the local body responsible for environmental issues. Both the newspaper and Atlántico authorities were said to consider the threats against Granados to be very serious. The Governor of Atlántico stated that the president of the CRA’s board of directors and members of the Atlántico department security forces went to the offices of El Heraldo and began an investigation into the threats. He also said that orders had been given for the journalist to be provided with protection.

*Francisco MÁRQUEZ LUGO: contributor to the newspaper El Propio, based in San Pelayo in Córdoba department, and political radio journalist, reportedly received an anonymous death threat on 8 May 2009. An unsigned notice stuck on the front door of his house sentenced Márquez and a number of other citizens and local government officials to death. One of them, the director of a local neighbourhood watch scheme, was killed by hired assassins 11 days later; it is thought that the murder was ordered by individuals that the director had accused of corruption. Márquez reported receiving four threatening calls since the notice was left on his door, the latest on 20 May. He has lodged a complaint with the local authorities. Two other journalists for El Propio, Alex Pájaro and Francisco Hoyos, reportedly also received telephone death threats on 7 May. In their case, the caller identified himself as a commander of the ultra-rightwing paramilitary group known as the Black Eagles.

Attacked

*Gustavo ÁLVAREZ GARDEAZÁBAL: novelist and journalist, was reportedly assaulted, held at gunpoint and threatened by unknown individuals who raided his house and took some of his files on 23 April 2009. According to Álvarez, six armed individuals burst into his home in Tulúa, Valle del Cauca, and pointed guns at him and his housekeeper. The gunmen rifled through files containing confidential information that he uses in his regular programme on national Radio Caracol. The assailants then said they could not find what they were looking for and took two computers and two mobile phones. The incident reportedly occurred shortly before Álvarez’ radio programme went on air. The writer believes that the attack was carried out by military personnel and that he had noticed that an army van had been parked in front of his house a few minutes before the incident took place. The army denies any involvement. However, on 26 April a group of five generals reportedly visited Álvarez to apologise for the “unfortunate coincidence” of the attack on his house taking place while an army vehicle was parked outside. Yet images from a CCTV camera reportedly show the assailants fleeing in the army vehicle. Álvarez has stated that he has received protection from the Interior Ministry following the attack. The Public Prosecutor (Fiscalía) was said to be investigating the incident.
Background: Álvarez is the author of the well known novel Cóndores no entierran todos los días. He is also a former governor of Valle del Cauca department.

*Denis CONTRERAS: journalist for the Baranquilla-based El Heraldo, along with a photographer from the same newspaper, was reportedly assaulted and threatened by a group of people connected with the tourism industry in Puerto Colombia, Atlántico on 8 March 2009. The assailants were apparently unhappy with some articles on an old wharf that had recently collapsed, in part because of neglect, which they took to be criticism of the municipality’s mayor. At the time of the attack, Contreras was covering a meeting between the Deputy Tourism Minister and local authorities to discuss plans for the reconstruction of tourist facilities in the port. According to El Herlado, a National Police officer sent by the mayor was present but did not intervene. The police officer denied this, however, stating that he had accompanied the news team to its van, ensuring they were able to leave without any further problems.

Threatened

*Camilo RAIGOZO: journalist for the weekly newspaper Voz, was briefly detained and harassed by members of the army while covering the release of individuals kidnapped by the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group on 2 February 2009. Raigozo was detained along with the well known TV journalist Hollman Morris and a cameraman at an army barracks on their way to the municipality of La Unión Peneya, three hours from Florencia, capital of Caquetá department in southern Colombia,. The soldiers reportedly did not want to allow them through because they were journalists. The three were eventually allowed to leave but were followed by soldiers. The journalists tried to alert human rights organisations, but the battalion colonel reportedly ordered the mobile phone shop – the only place where calls could be made - to be closed and demanded they hand over their work, stating that he had “orders from his superiors”. The journalists refused and continued to be followed by the soldiers. Although informed by the army that they could go on, the journalists decided to return to Florencia, escorted by a representative of the Ombudsman’s Office. The secretary of the government of Caquetá reportedly stated that Hollman Morris “was not detained, but escorted by the army”.

*Enrique SANTOS CALDERÓN: editor of the newspaper El Tiempo. At the end of March 2009 it was reported that the Colombian authorities had uncovered and halted a plot to kill Santos. The plot, attributed to a faction of the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group, allegedly also targeted the editor’s brother, Defence Minister Juan Manuel Santos, and other members of his family. The murders were said to have be planned to take place at the end of Easter week on a family farm in the municipality of Anapoima, Cundinamarca Department, near Bogotá. On 26 March, President Alvaro Uribe reported that police had arrested 10 guerrilla fighters with police uniforms, weapons and documents detailing a plan for carrying out the killings in various municipalities in Cundinamarca and Huila Department, south of the capital.

Harassed

Daniel CORONELL: columnist for the magazine Semana and the daily newspaper El Espectador, and TV network editor. On 18 March 2009 a court in Meta reportedly issued an arrest warrant for Coronell for contempt of court after he refused to correct for a second time a September 2008 story, published in the national daily El Tiempo, that linked a local businessman to drug trafficking. The court ordered Coronell to be held for three days and to pay a fine of 2 million pesos (US$844). The businessman implicated in the article had denied the allegations and sought a correction in El Tiempo, which he obtained via a court ruling in October 2008. El Tiempo appealed the decision, which was upheld in January 2009. In March 2009 the high court ordered another identical correction, which Coronell refused to publish on the grounds that he believed the ruling to be illegal. It is not clear whether Santos was in fact arrested. Santos has also suffered harassment by the Colombian intelligence agency, the Administrative Department of Security (DAS), which has reportedly been monitoring and intercepting his telephone and email account (see separate entry below).
Previous attacks: In August 2008, Coronell was threatened with a criminal investigation at President Uribe’s instigation, for not immediately disclosing a videotaped interview that allegedly links the Uribe administration to a corruption scandal involving bribes offered to former congresswoman Yidis Medina in exchange for her vote in favour of a constitutional amendment that allowed Uribe to seek election to a third presidential term. On 11 October 2007, Uribe publically referred to Coronell as a “coward, liar, swine, and professional slanderer” after the journalist wrote a column on alleged Uribe’s ties with the deceased drug trafficker Pablo Escobar. On 2 January 2006, Coronell faced criminal defamation charges brought by former senator Carlos Náder. Coronell claimed that he had received e-mail death threats sent from Náder’s computer. Coronell temporarily went into exile in the United States having received threats, apparently from other sources.

*Daniel CORONELL, columnist for the magazine Semana and the daily newspaper El Espectador, and TV network editor; Carlos LOZANO, editor of the weekly Voz; Norbey QUEVEDO of the daily El Espectador; Salud HERNÁNDEZ and Edulfo PEÑA of the daily El Tiempo; and Alejandro SANTOS, the editor of the weekly Semana. Among 14 journalists and eight news media named in intelligence documents leaked to the Colombian media in mid May 2009. The documents were compiled by the Administrative Department of Security (DAS), an intelligence agency that reports directly to the president’s office, and leaked by former DAS employees. The documents suggest ongoing surveillance of the journalists. In February 2009 it was revealed that the telephones and email accounts of certain journalists were being monitored and intercepted on the orders of the DAS leadership in coordination with the Casa de Nariño, the presidential palace, at the end of 2008. The journalists included Coronell, Santos (see separate entries above) and Ramiro Bejarano, columnist for the daily newspaper El Espectador. President Uribe denied ordering the surveillance, which he blamed on a “mafia gang” that had infiltrated the DAS.

*Fernando RENDÓN MERINO: poet, director of the magazine Prometeo and of the Medellín International Poetry Festival, has reportedly been subject to harassment by the authorities who are seeking to link him to terrorist activities. In late June 2009, Rendón said he had been named in documents relating to an investigation into local politicians, including leaders of the opposition party Polo Democrático Alternativo, and NGOs, who are accused of involvement with the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (FARC) guerrilla group. The investigation is reportedly being carried out by the 74th Special Prosecutor of the Counterterrorism Unit, based in the 4th Brigade of the Colombian Army in Medellín. Rendón also reports having received death threats and says that shots have been fired outside the festival’s offices. The Medellín International Poetry Festival was awarded the Right Livelihood Prize (aka Alternative Nobel Prize) in 2006.

Case closed

Patricia ARIZA (f): renowned playwright, dramaturge, poet, actress and political and human rights activist, has been subjected to a campaign of harassment since late 2008, including an alleged investigation seeking to link her to the Colombian Revolutionary Armed Forces (FARC) guerrilla group. She has been accused of affiliations with left wing organisations, some of which sympathetic to FARC, specifically the Clandestine Colombian Communist Party (Partido Comunista Colombiano Clandestino, PC3). Her theatre activities and a project she runs with abandoned children, the elderly, young women and rappers are reportedly suspected of being related to ‘mass work’ for the PC3. Ariza acknowledges her past affiliations but dismisses the allegations of collaborating with guerrilla groups. She suspects that her human rights work and leftwing views, including her activism for the opposition political party Democratic Pole (Polo Democrático), are behind the charges. No further information as of 30 June 2009; case closed [International Women’s Day action – 8 March 2009].

CUBA
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Imprisoned - main cases (26)

March 2003 Crackdown Trials
The following 22 writers, journalists and librarians were among 35 sentenced during one-day trials held on 3/4 April 2003 under laws governing the protection of the Cuban state. They were arrested as part of a crackdown on alleged dissidents that began on 18 March 2003 and in which 75 people in total were detained and tried. The one-day court hearings were held behind closed doors and there was insufficient time for the accused to put together a cogent defence. The accusations focused on the alleged conspiratorial dealings between the defendants and James Cason, the chief of the US Special Interests Section in Havana. Shortly before the crackdown Cason had considerably stepped up his contacts with Cubans who had voiced opposition to Fidel Castro.
Charges All of the detained were tried under Article 91 of the Penal Code and Law 88. Article 91 deals with charges of acting against “the independence of the territorial integrity of the state”, the maximum penalty for which is death. Law 88 is a catch-all piece of legislation that has been used in the past as a means for sending writers and journalists to prison. It allows for prison sentences of up to 20 years for those found guilty of committing “acts that, in line with imperialist interests, are aimed at subverting the internal order of the Nation and destroying its political, economic, and social system.”
Appeals All those sentenced lodged appeals with the Tribunal Supremo Popular (Supreme Popular Tribunal) in April 2003 but none were successful. However, since April 2004, 14 of those sentenced have been conditionally released, seemingly for health reasons.
Background An official statement on the Cuban government website (www.cubagov.cu) explicitly condemned the alleged actions of James Cason and, by definition, those with whom he allegedly conspired. The fact that the statement went on to mention the so-called Five Heroes – Cuban nationals who infiltrated Miami-based anti-Castro organisations – suggests that the arrests may also have been made as a reprisal, and possibly as a bargaining chip to obtain their release. This appears to be confirmed by Raul Castro’s offer on 18 December 2008 to release political prisoners in exchange for the Five Heroes. The Five Heroes have been detained in the US since 1998. The Working Group on Arbitrary Detention of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights has formally declared that all those sentenced in the March 2003 clampdown are being detained arbitrarily (Category II).
Health concerns: the majority of the writers, journalists and librarians are suffering from health complaints caused or exacerbated by the harsh conditions and treatment they are exposed to in prison. Despite their deteriorating health status, access to adequate medical treatment is often limited. (See below for individual updates).

Pedro ARGÜELLES MORÁN: director of the Cooperative of Independent Avileña Journalists (Cooperativa Avileña de Periodistas Independientes, CAPI), Ciego de Ávila. Also said to be a cartographer.
Year of birth: 24 February 1948.
Sentence: 20 years. Expires: April 2023. Charge: Law 88. Prison Canaleta, Ciego de Ávila.
Concerns: Since his imprisonment, Argüelles has reportedly suffered from a number of health complaints including cataracts which have left him almost blind, arthritis, respiratory ailments and weight loss. He has reportedly been on hunger strike on at least two occasions in 2007 and 2008 to gain access to medicines and periodicals with religious content.
Update: On 16 June 2009, it was reported that Argüelles had been returned to his cell after spending more than a month in the Ciego de Ávila hospital. According to the report, doctors had told him that he would be taken to Havana to have an operation for a discal hernia and cataracts but he was later told he could not be operated on for his cataracts until an eye infection had cleared up.
Honorary Member: English PEN.

Víctor Rolando ARROYO CARMONA: author, journalist (Independent Union of Independent Cuban Journalists and Writers - Unión de Periodistas y Escritores de Cuba Independiente, UPECI, and Cubanet) and independent librarian (Reyes Magos Library).
Date of birth: 23 December 1951.
Sentence: 26 years. Expires: April 2029.
Prison Kilo 5 prison, Pinar del Río. Charge: Law 88 and Article 91.
Concerns: Since his imprisonment Arroyo has reportedly been diagnosed with various ailments including diabetes, hypertension and pulmonary emphysema (an irreversible lung condition), and has been denied medical attention on several occasions. He has staged protests against prison conditions and as a result has been held in “punishment cells”. He is also said to have been attacked by other prisoners and threatened by the prison authorities. In late August 2008 Arroyo was reportedly transferred from Holguín prison, eastern Cuba, where he had been held since October 2005, to Kilo 5 prison in Pinar del Río, which means that he is now closer to his family.
New information: On 5 June 2009, it was reported that Arroyo had been hospitalized as a result of a three week hunger strike. He had reportedly begun the hunger strike on 15 May in protest at prison conditions, including lack of medical care and overcrowding. His wife, who had visited him in hospital, said that his health had greatly deteriorated.
Honorary member: Finnish PEN

Mijaíl BÁRZAGA LUGO: journalist (Agencia Noticiosa de Cuba); brother of well known human rights activist Belkis Bárzaga Lugo.
Date of birth: 25 April 1967.
Sentence: 15 years. Expires: April 2018.
Prison: 1580 prison, Havana. Charge Law 88.
Concerns: In March 2008, it was reported that Bárzago was sharing a cell with 16 other prisoners. According to his sister, the authorities allow the family to give him medicine during visits but not always food to supplement the poor prison diet.
Recent information: In August 2008, Bárzaga was reportedly transferred from the maximum security Agüica prison in Matanzas province to 1580 prison in Havana, which means that he is now closer to his family. No further information as of 30 June 2009; PEN is seeking an update.
Honorary Member: Netherlands PEN

Juan Adolfo FERNÁNDEZ SAÍNZ: journalist (correspondent for independent news agency Patria).
Date of birth: 30 November 1948.
Sentence: 15 years. Expires: April 2018.
Prison: Canaleta, Ciego de Ávila. Charge Law 88.
Concerns: Fernández is said to have suffered from numerous health complaints in prison, including emphysema (an irreversible lung condition), a kidney cyst, arthritis, osteoporosis, hypertension, circulation problems and weight loss. He has reportedly gone on hunger strike on several occasions in protest at prison conditions, most recently to gain access to literature with religious content.
Recent information: In late 2008 it was reported that his wife had to travel 400 kilometres for their two-monthly visits. No further information as of 30 June 2009; PEN is seeking an update.
Honorary Member: Catalán PEN, English PEN.

Miguel GALVÁN GUTIÉRREZ: journalist (Havana Press agency) and coordinator of the pro-democracy Varela Project; also said to be a mechanical engineer.
Year of birth: 12 January 1965.
Sentence: 26 years. Expires: April 2029.
Prison: Guanajay, Havana. Charge: Article 91 and Law 88.
Concerns: Galván is reported to have suffered a number of illnesses in prison and to be physically disabled as a result of a car accident. He has also reportedly suffered maltreatment by the prison authorities, including being housed with convicted murderers and other dangerous prisoners in 2004, and being kept in solitary confinement for over six months in 2005-06.
Recent information: Despite a June 2007 transfer from the maximum security Agüica prison in Matanzas to Guanajay prison in Havana, where conditions were reportedly better, in March 2008 it was reported that Galván continued to experience solitary confinement, inadequate medical care and restrictions on family visits. Although this maltreatment has in the past been said to be linked to his reporting on prison conditions, Galván continues to file stories from jail, including an August 2008 article on the allegedly abysmal work conditions of prisoners used as free labour in a local shoe factory. No further information as of 30 June 2009; PEN is seeking an update.
Honorary Member: Sydney PEN Centre.

Julio César GÁLVEZ RODRÍGUEZ: freelance journalist from 2001; previously worked for the official media for 24 years.
Year of birth: 22 August 1944.
Sentence: 15 years. Expires: April 2018.
Prison: Combinado del Este, Havana. Charge: Law 88.
Concerns: Gálvez is said to suffer from a number of health conditions including hypertension, arthrosis (a degenerative disease of the joints) and serious respiratory problems which he has developed since his imprisonment. He was operated on for kidney stones in early 2004 and was hospitalised in September 2007.
Recent information: In December 2008 it was reported that Gálvez continues to write from prison. No further information as of 30 June 2009; PEN is seeking an update.

José Luis GARCÍA PANEQUE: journalist (Agencia Libertad press agency) and librarian (Carlos J Finlay Library); said to have previously worked as a plastic surgeon.
Date of birth: 24 July 1965.
Sentence: 24 years. Expires: April 2027.
Prison: Las Mangas prison, Granma. Charge: Law 88 and Article 91.
Concerns: García Paneque is reported to have suffered mental illness during his imprisonment and to have been held in a prison psychiatric unit from November 2004 to November 2005. He is also said to suffer from acute intestinal illness, which led to malnutrition, diarrhoea and weight loss, as well as chronic pneumonia and a kidney tumour. Despite his worsening health, in 2008 he was reportedly deprived of medical treatment. His wife and children are said to have fled to the USA in June 2007 due to constant harassment. As of December 2008, still being held at Las Mangas prison, where he is reportedly allowed one family visit every 45 days.
New information: In the first part of 2009, García Paneque’s mother expressed concern about her son’s deteriorating state of health on several occasions, saying that he had lost a lot of weight as a result of stomach problems and diarrhoea.
Honorary Member: English PEN.

Ricardo Severino GONZÁLEZ ALFONSO: journalist, librarian and poet.
Date of birth: 19 February 1950.
Sentence: 20 years. Expires: April 2023.
Prison: Combinado del Este, Havana. Charge: Article 91.
Concerns: González has reportedly suffered numerous health problems since his imprisonment, including hypertension, arthritis, a heart condition, chronic bronchitis, digestive and circulatory problems and allergies. He is understood to have had three operations and also to have spent some time in a prison psychiatric ward in 2005. González was hospitalised from September 2007 to January 2008 and continued to be in very poor health once returned to his cell. Despite this he was reportedly denied medical treatment on several occasions in 2008, including not receiving the medicine he had been prescribed for his heart condition. As of early December 2008, González was said to be sharing a cell with 36 other prisoners which had reportedly flooded on several occasions, worsening the already unsanitary conditions. González has reportedly been granted a humanitarian visa to travel to Costa Rica, but the Cuban authorities have refused to allow him to leave the island.
New information: In January 2009, González’ wife reported that her husband had been denied telephone contact his children since December 2008, when he was awarded the Reporters Without Borders 2008 Journalist of the Year prize for “helping an independent press to survive in Cuba”. In February, it was reported that González was being kept in solitary confinement. On 21 May, González’ wife said that her husband was suffering from neck pain, gastritis and hypertension, but was in good spirits. Family visits had been reduced from every 45 days to every two months.
Biographical details: Having previously worked as a scriptwriter for the state TV agency, González joined the independent press in 1995, working for the news agency Cuba Press. In 1998 he established the Jorge Mañach Library, an independent library specialising in journalism. He went on to set up the Manuel Márquez Sterling Journalists Society with poet Raúl Rivero to provide training to independent Cuban journalists in 2001; many of the Society’s members were arrested along with González and Rivero in March 2003 (Rivero was released in 2004). González was also director of the now defunct fortnightly magazine De Cuba, which tackled subjects such as racism in Cuba and the Varela Project (a petition calling for a referendum on legal reform with the goal of greater personal, political and economic freedoms and an amnesty for political prisoners). Unfortunately only two issues of De Cuba were produced before Gonazález’ arrest, one in December 2002 and the other February 2003, the latter of which was confiscated.
Publications: Historia Sangrada (A Bloody History) (Hispano Cubana, Spain, 2005 - poetry) and Hombres sin Rostros (Men without Faces) (2005 and 2006, Miami; SEPHA, Spain; Buchet Chastel, France; Ediciones Il Foglio, Italy) and Con Fines Humanos (Human Purposes), the last of which was written in prison. His work has been published in Cuba, Spain, the USA, Belgium, France, Italy and Puerto Rico.
Honorary member: Finnish PEN and German PEN.

Léster Luis GONZÁLEZ PENTÓN: independent journalist (Movimiento Democracia) and member of human rights movement ALFA-3.
Year of birth: 22 February 1977; said to be the youngest of the 75 dissidents arrested in March 2003.
Sentence: 20 years. Expires: April 2023.
Prison: La Pendiente provincial prison, Santa Clara. Charge: Article 91.
Concerns: González has reportedly been diagnosed with chronic gastritis, sinusitis and back pain, and anxiety. He has been hospitalized on several occasions and had a number of operations in 2008. He went on hunger strike in 2004, 2005 and 2006 against poor prison conditions and is reportedly harassed and threatened by prison guards on a regular basis.
New information: In April 2009, González reported that he had been allowed to return home to his wife and daughter for three days, between 20 and 23 March. He said that he had also been told that he will be allowed to spend three days at home every 45 days. However, as of 30 June there had been no reports of further furloughs.
Honorary Member: American, English and Sydney PEN Centres.

Iván HERNÁNDEZ CARRILLO:journalist (Agencia Patria news agency) and librarian (Juan Gualberto Gómez Library).
Date of birth: 24 May 1971.
Sentence: 25 years. Expires: April 2028.
Prison: Guamajal Prison, Villa Clara Charge: Law 88.
Concerns: Hernández reportedly suffers from hypertension and gastritis and has frequently complained about prison conditions. He went on hunger strike in 2003 to demand decent food and medicine for seriously ill prisoners and again in 2007 in protest at mistreatment by guards. In 2008 he reported being denied visits, letters and newspapers and being threatened and attacked by other prisoners. He also complained about unsanitary conditions, rotten food and dirty water.
New information: On 30 April 2009, Hernández’ mother reported that he had been on hunger strike that month in protest at not having his own cell. She said that the protest stemmed from the prison authorities encouraging the non political prisoners with whom Hernández was sharing a cell to isolate and threaten him. Earlier that month, Hernández reportedly said he feared for his life.
Honorary Member: Catalán and Scottish PEN Centres.

Normando HERNÁNDEZ GONZÁLEZ: director of the news agency Camagüey College of Independent Journalists (Colegio de Periodistas Independientes de Camagüey), journalist (Cubanet).
Date of birth: 21 October 1969.
Sentence: 25 years. Expires: April 2028.
Prison: Kilo 7 prison, Camagüey. Charge: Article 91 and other provisions of the Criminal Code, reportedly for criticising the government on Radio Martí.
Concerns: Hernández has reportedly suffered numerous medical complaints since his imprisonment, including hypertension, heart, stomach, digestive and respiratory problems, back pain and significant weight loss. Latterly he has also experienced mental health issues related to his long illness and ill treatment in prison. It is reported that Hernández has also suffered maltreatment, including assaults by staff and harassment and attacks by other inmates, and being held with prisoners with acute psychiatric disorders, some of whom are extremely dangerous. Hopes of Hernández’ imminent release were dashed when on 7 May 2008 he was discharged from Carlos J. Finlay military hospital in Havana, where he had been receiving treatment since September 2007, and returned to Kilo 7 prison. The move came without explanation and in secret. Following the transfer, Hernández was reportedly kept in solitary confinement and in very poor conditions, with inadequate food and medical attention. In June 2008, his wife stated that Hernández was being held in the prison’s infirmary, and at the end of 2008 said that her request medical parole for that July had been met with no response.
New information: Hernández was reportedly admitted to the Combinado del Este prison hospital on 8 January 2009, suffering from inflammation of or a growth on his Adam’s apple. Although he received some limited medical attention it is said that he did not receive any treatment for this complaint and was returned to Kilo 7 prison on 25 February, still in ill health. On 2 April, Hernández’ wife reported that she feared his health was worsening. He had suffered a prolonged bout of diarrhoea and chronic back pain, as a result of which he was having difficulties walking. She also said he was in very poor spirits.
Honorary Member: English & American PEN. Recipient of the 2007 American PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award.

Juan Carlos HERRERA ACOSTA: journalist (Eastern Free Press Agency - Agencia de Prensa Libre Oriental or APLO).
Sentence: 20 years. Expires: April 2023.
Prison: Holguin. Charge: Law 88.
Concerns: Herrera reportedly suffers from health problems including cardio-vascular ailments, vitiligo (a disfiguring skin condition) and weight loss. He has staged a number of protests including hunger strikes - on several occasions reportedly sewing up his mouth - against the miserable prison conditions, poor medical care and the physical and verbal mistreatment to which he claims he is subjected. In July 2008, Herrera reportedly went on hunger strike again to demand better prison conditions, including better food, the right to religious attendance, longer phone calls to his family and a transfer to a prison in his home province of Guantanamo. At the end of 2008 it was reported that he was suffering from psychological stress.
New information: On 24 March 2009, Herrera reportedly said that he was in very poor health. No further news; PEN is seeking an update.
Honorary Member: German PEN.

Régis IGLESIAS RAMÍREZ: poet, writer and member of the prodemocracy Movimiento Cristiano Liberación (Christian Liberation Movement) and Varela Project Varela Project.
Date of birth: 18 September 1969.
Sentence: 18 years. Expires: April 2021.
Prison: Combinado del Este, Havana. Charge: Article 91.
Concerns: In December 2004, Iglesias was reportedly diagnosed with pulmonary emphysema (an irreversible lung condition).
Publications: ‘Historias gentiles antes de la Resurrección’ (Aduana Vieja, Cádiz, 2004) (poetry).
No further news as of 30 June 2009; PEN is seeking an update.
Honorary member: Swiss Italian PEN.

José Ubaldo IZQUIERDO HERNÁNDEZ: freelance journalist (independent news agency Grupo de Trabajo Decoro and CubaNet), librarian (director of Sebastián Arcos Bergnes library) and pro-democracy activist.
Date of birth: 6 November 1965.
Sentence: 16 years. Expires: 2019.
Prison: Guanajay, Havana. Charge: Article 91.
Concerns: Izquierdo has reportedly suffered from numerous ailments since his imprisonment, including pulmonary emphysema (an irreversible lung condition), stomach and intestinal problems and asthma. His health has worsened since 2007, when he was reportedly twice hospitalised for circulation and gastro-duodenal problems, and went on hunger strike in protest at the lack of medical attention at the prison. At the end of 2008 it was reported that Izquierdo was suffering from depression. No further news as of 30 June 2009; PEN is seeking an update.
Honorary member: Swiss Italian PEN

José Miguel MARTÍNEZ HERNÁNDEZ: librarian (General Juan Bruno Zayas Library), area representative for the unofficial political group Movimiento 24 de Febrero, and involved in the pro-democracy Varela project.
Year of birth: 1963.
Sentence: 13 years. Expires: April 2016.
Prison: El Aguacate high security prison, Quivicán, Habana province.
Charge: Law 88.
Concerns: In August 2008, Martínez reported that sanitary conditions were extremely poor in El Aguacate, with contaminated drinking water and an outbreak of tuberculosis exacerbated by damp and overcrowding. No further news as of 30 June 2009; PEN is seeking an update.

Héctor Fernando MASEDA GUTIÉRREZ: independent journalist, author and president of the Cuban Liberal Party (Partido Liberal Cubano).
Date of birth: 8 January 1943.
Sentence: 20 years. Expires: April 2023.
Prison: Agüica maximum security prison, Colón, Matanzas.
Charge: Law 88 and Article 91.
Health concerns: Maseda is said to suffer from hypertension and skin complaints. In 2007 he reportedly had numerous skin growths, feared to be malignant, surgically removed.
Prison conditions: For the first two years and 10 months of his sentence, Maseda was reportedly held in solitary confinement in a maximum security prison and was not allowed any visits; during this time he reportedly lost a great deal of weight (18 kilos). In March 2007, Maseda’s wife reportedly made a complaint to the Interior Ministry about the inhumane way in which he had been transferred from his prison to a hospital where he was due to undergo surgery. Despite being extremely weak, Maseda had allegedly been left in a punishment cell for three hours before being shackled for the transfer. After his wife delivered a copy of Maseda’s book Enterrados Vivos to the Cuban President’s office in March 2008, it was reported that there had been surveillance of their calls, with Maseda being told his calls would cut off if he read out anything over the phone. The prison authorities reportedly confiscated a series of articles and a number of pages from his new book in October 2008. No further news as of 30 June 2009; PEN is seeking an update.
Biographical details: Maseda is said to be the oldest of the imprisoned writers and journalists in Cuba. An engineer with a degree in nuclear physics, he began working as an independent journalist in 1995 after losing his government job as a result of his political views. He later co-founded the independent news agency Grupo de Trabajo Decoro, which published reports critical of Cuba in the foreign media. He also wrote for the Miami-based news website CubaNet. Maseda reportedly focused on social, economic and historical topics not covered in the official press and wrote investigative pieces, including a series on human right abuses in Cuban prisons published shortly before his arrest in 2003. Once jailed, Maseda continued to write about prison conditions first hand.
Publications: The first part of his memoir, Enterrados Vivos (Buried Alive) was published in the United States in 2007, after the manuscript was smuggled out of prison one page at a time. The book, which Maseda intends to have three parts, has also reportedly been published in the Caribbean and Western Europe.
Honorary Member: Italian PEN.

Pablo PACHECO ÁVILA: freelance journalist (independent news agencies Agencia Patria and Cooperativa Avileña de Periodistas Independientes).
Date of birth: 4 April 1970.
Sentence: 20 years. Expires: April 2023.
Prison: Morón, Ciego de Ávila. Charge: Law 88.
Concerns: Pacheco has reportedly suffered from a number of ailments since his imprisonment, including hypertension, kidney problems, acute gastritis, severe headaches and joint problems in both knees.
New information: In early January 2009, Pacheco was temporarily transferred from Morón prison to Canaleta prison in Ciego de Ávila. On 20 March, Pacheco was allowed to return home to his family for 24 hours, reportedly as a reward for good behaviour. The news came as a surprise: the authorities only informed Pacheco’s wife the same day, when she was due to visit her husband in prison. The journalist took advantage of his time out of prison to give an interview to US-based Radio Martí and speak to other journalists who remain imprisoned or have been released on medical parole, among others. According to Pacheco’s wife, the prison authorities told her that all imprisoned journalists would be granted similar 24-hour permits to go home, depending on their behaviour.

Fabio PRIETO LLORENTE: freelance journalist and member of the Asamblea para la Sociedad Civil (Civil Society Assembly).
Year of birth: 11 March 1963.
Sentence: 20 years. Expires: April 2023.
Prison: El Guayabo, Isla de la Juventud. Charge: Article 91 and Law 88.
Concerns: During his detention Prieto has reportedly suffered from a variety of medical complaints including hypertension, emphysema (an irreversible lung condition), heart complications, severe back pain, ear infections, allergies and depression. He has reportedly undertaken several hunger strikes in protest at very poor prison conditions, including being kept in solitary confinement for months at a time, being held with dangerous prisoners, overcrowding and dirty drinking water.
New information: On 3 February 2009, it was reported that Prieto was being kept in solitary confinement and had been on hunger strike since 28 January in protest at alleged harassment by prison guards and State Security agents. As of 26 May, the harassment was reportedly ongoing, including assaults and searches. On 8 June, Prieto was reportedly sprayed with tear gas after staging a protest about prison conditions.
Honorary Member: English PEN Centre.

Alfredo Manuel PULIDO LÓPEZ:human rights activist and freelance journalist (director of El Mayor news agency, Camagüey).
Date of birth: 14 November 1960.
Sentence: 14 years. Expires: April 2017.
Prison: Kilo 7, Camagüey. Charge: Article 91.
Concerns: There was serious concern for Pulido’s health in 2008. He was reportedly suffering from chronic bronchitis, high blood pressure, hypoglycaemia, osteoporosis, vision loss, gastritis, severe headaches and depression. According to his wife, he was thin and weak, dragged his feet when walking and had difficulty eating, however her request for him to be released on health grounds had been refused.
New information: On 6 April 2009, Pulido’s wife said that her husband was very weak after a number of illnesses.

Blas Giraldo REYES RODRÍGUEZ: librarian (20 de Mayo Library, Sancti Spiritus) and member of the steering committee of the pro-democracy Varela Project, Sancti Spíritus.
Date of birth: 7 August 1955.
Sentence: 25 years. Expires: April 2028.
Prison: Nieves Morejón, Sancti Spíritus. Charge: Law 88.
Concerns: Reyes is said to suffer from a number of health complaints including arterial hypertension, arthrosis (a degenerative disease of the joints) and gastritis. He was reportedly hospitalized in August 2008 for low blood sugar and sudden weight loss which it was feared may indicate the onset of diabetes. Reyes has denounced prison conditions on several occasions, including flooding and sanitary problems, severe overcrowding and lack of beds.
New information: On 9 April 2009, Reyes was reportedly diagnosed with diabetic neuropathy (a complication of diabetes causing damage to the nerves) and was waiting for a second opinion and treatment.
Honorary Member: Sydney PEN Centre.

Omar RODRÍGUEZ SALUDES: director of the independent press agency Nueva Prensa Cubana.
Date of birth: 11 July 1965.
Sentence: 27 years. Expires: April 2030.
Prison: Toledo, Havana. Charge: Article 91.
Concerns: In 2008 Rodríguez had reportedly been diagnosed with gastrointestinal problems and hypertension but his health was otherwise stable. According to his son, who has lost his job because of his father’s imprisonment, Rodríguez is determined not to let prison break his will.
Background: In September 2008, in a case brought under the US Alien Tort Claims Act, a Miami judge reportedly ruled that Rodríguez’ arrest, trial and imprisonment had violated his human rights and that the treatment and conditions that he has experienced in prison amounted to torture. The Alien Tort Claims Act allows non-US claimants to bring suit in a US court for any violation of “the law of nations or a treaty of the United States.” In recent years the Act has increasingly been used to bring human rights actions against foreign officials on behalf of alleged victims of rights violations.
New information: In an interview with Rodríguez’ wife released by the International Press Institution in July 2009, she reported that the prison where her husband was being held was severely overcrowded, dirty and subject to extreme fluctuations in temperature and flooding in hurricane season. She also indicated that there were water shortages.
Honorary member: Finnish PEN Centre.

Omar Moisés RUÍZ HERNÁNDEZ: freelance journalist (news agency Grupo de Trabajo Decoro and CubaNet).
Date of birth 16 November 1947.
Sentence: 18 years. Expires: April 2021.
Prison: Nieves Morejón, Guayos, Sancti Spíritus. Charge: Article 91.
Concerns: Ruiz has reportedly suffered from poor health since his imprisonment, including hypertension, a detached retina, pneumonia, and prostate, kidney and circulatory problems. Prison conditions are said to be crowded and noisy, which has reportedly caused Ruiz mental distress and insomnia. He is also understood to have endured maltreatment such as solitary confinement, being held in punishment cells and harassment.
New information: On 27 April 2009, it was reported that Ruiz was sharing a small cell with 12 other prisoners. The frequency of his family visits had been reduced from every 45 days to every two months.
Honorary Member: Swedish PEN

*Albert Santiago DU BOUCHET HERNÁNDEZ: director and reporter of the Havana-based independent news agency Habana Press.
Date of arrest: 18 April 2009. Sentence: three years. Expires: 17 April 2012.
Prison: Melena 2, south of Havana. Charge: “disrespect for authority”.
Details of arrest and trial: Du Bouchet was arrested on 18 April 2009 while visiting relatives in Artemisa, near Havana. The circumstances of the arrest are unclear but it understood that he was taken to the local police station after a verbal exchange with a police officer. The police have claimed he was shouting anti-government slogans in the street. He was transferred to Melena 2 prison to the south of Havana on 10 May. On 12 May he was sentenced to three years in prison on charges of “disrespect for authority”. There were unconfirmed reports that he was also reportedly charged with “distributing enemy propaganda”, but it is not known whether he was convicted of this charge. The trial was said to have been summary and Du Bouchet was reportedly denied access to a lawyer. He has appealed his sentence but it is thought unlikely that the appeal will be successful. His family had reportedly not been allowed to visit him since his arrest. One source indicated that Du Bouchet was jailed in reprisal for his work, which includes reporting on social issues.
Previous imprisonment: This is the second time Du Bouchet has been imprisoned on “disrespect” charges. In August 2005 he was arrested after attending the congress of the pro-democracy Assembly to Promote Civil Society, summarily tried without access to a lawyer and sentenced to one year in prison. Du Bouchet was released in August 2006, having served the sentence in full. He has reportedly been threatened with prison on several occasions since his release.

Raymundo PERDIGÓN BRITO: d.o.b. 24 November 1965, founder of independent news agency Yayabo Press, Sancti Spíritus; since his arrest, Perdigón’s sister has reportedly taken over as editor.
Date of arrest: 29 Nov 2006. Sentence: 4 years. Expires: 28 Nov 2010.
Prison: Nieves Morejón, Guayos, Sancti Spíritus province.
Charge: Article 72 (“social dangerousness”).
Details of arrest and trial: Perdigón was arrested on charges on being a “pre-criminal danger to society” 29 November 2006 after defying a State Security order to cease his journalistic activities, and was sentenced on 5 December 2006.
New information: On 10 Aoril 2009, Perdigón’s sister reported that prison authorities were subjecting her brother to ill treatment, including hitting, threatening and insulting him, cutting off his telephone calls and repeatedly locking him up in a punishment cell. Her comments followed a family visit on 8 April when a prison guard had reportedly threatened Perdigón with violence.

Oscar SÁNCHEZ MADAN: Matanzas correspondent for the Miamibased website CubaNet.
Year of birth: 10 December 1961.
Date of arrest: 13 April 2007. Sentence: four years, reduced to three years on appeal. Expires: 12 April 2010.
Prison: Combinado del Sur maximum security prison, outside Matanzas.
Charge: Article 72 (“social dangerousness”).
Details of arrest and trial: Following repeated warnings by local authorities to stop working as a journalist, Sánchez was arrested on 13 April 2007 and convicted the same day at a closed trial where he reportedly had no access to legal counsel.
Previous harassment: Sánchez had covered a local corruption scandal in March 2007, along with social problems in Matanzas. Prior to his imprisonment he had been detained twice since 2006, in September 2006 and March 2007 (see previous case lists), and had been repeatedly warned by local authorities to stop working as a journalist.
Concerns: Since his imprisonment Sánchez has complained of maltreatment, including being attacked and threatened by other inmates, restricted communications and inadequate medical attention. He reportedly fell and broke his leg in June 2008 and was only given treatment almost four weeks later. In November 2008, he reported that he had stopped writing a year previously after a number of his letters were confiscated. In December 2008 it was reported that he was again being denied medical attention. No further news as of 30 June 2009; PEN is seeking an update.

Ramón VELÁZQUEZ TORANSO: journalist for the independent news agency Libertad.
Date of trial: 23 January 2007. Sentence: 3 years. Expires: 22 January 2010.
Prison: Forced-labour camp in Las Tunas province
Charge: Article 72 (“social dangerousness”).
Details of arrest and trial: Velásquez was arrested on 23 January 2007 together with his wife and daughter, both of whom were freed later that day. He was sentenced to three years of supervised parole, before being taken to El Típico provincial prison.
Concerns: Following a hunger strike in 30 January 2007 Velásquez was transferred to a forced-labour camp in Las Tunas province in March that year. No further news as of 30 June 2009; PEN is seeking an update.

Brief detention

*Roberto de Jesús PÉREZ GUERRA: director of the Havana-based independent news agency Hablemos Press and Secretary General of Bibliotecas Independientes de Cuba (BIC), was arrested by State Security agents at his home on 1 March and detained until 4 March. His arrest was reportedly part of a wider police crackdown on dissidents. During his detention, Pérez was reportedly repeatedly questioned about the appearance of anti-Fidel Castro posters in Havana but refused to reveal his sources. He was reportedly denied access to medication he requires for pulmonary emphysema (an irreversible lung condition), hypertension and skin allergies. It was not clear on his release whether or not the authorities had pressed charges. According to Pérez’ wife, he was arrested around 50 times in 2008 and repeatedly warned to stop working as an independent journalist. It is understood that Pérez, who is also vice president of the Havana-based human rights group Consejo Relator de Derechos Humanos de Cuba, provides stories focusing on political prisoners and human rights abuses in Cuba to foreign-based Cuban newswebsites such as CubaNet and PayoLibre.

Attacked

*Alvaro YERO FELIPE: Havana-based dissident internet writer working for the citizen journalism site Demotix, was reportedly beaten by State Security agents while on his way to a meeting in support of prisoners of conscience on 5 April 2009. The attack, which took place in a public park, left Yero with a badly bruised face, a broken nose and a split lip. The journalist was accompanied by two friends when he was intercepted.

Harassed

*Lisbán HERNÁNDEZ SÁNCHEZ: independent journalist press officer for dissident group Comisión Martiana, was reportedly threatened with imprisonment on 7 May 2009. State Security agents reportedly went to the Havana home of Hernández (27) where they warned him that he could be jailed for up to four years as a “pre-criminal danger to society.”


ECUADOR
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Threatened

*Juan Carlos CALDERÓN VIVANCO: editor-in-chief of Diario Expreso, reported on 9 June 2009 that in February he had been threatened by two men who pointed a gun at his head on a street in Guayaquil. He believed that the incident was related to a series of reports about alleged irregularities within the Ministry of Health relating to the rating of suppliers. Calderón believed the attack was not an attempted robbery but rather was intended to be a warning. Calderón said that he had also received a telephone call telling him to stop reporting on the case a few days after publishing the investigation.

*Emilio PALACIO: editor of the op-ed section of El Universo newspaper, reportedly received an email insulting and threatening him and his family on 13 March 2009. The message referred to a 1 March article in which Palacio criticised President Rafael Correa’s radio programme. Palacio believes it likely that the message was sent by somebody close to the President. The journalist said that he had received many threats in the past but that this was the first to worry him as it mentioned his wife and son. He reported the threat to the President via the Guayas Provincial Government office and within hours was offered police protection.
Background: Correa has reportedly been waging a campaign to harass and discredit El Universo since 2007, publicly alleging that the newspaper publishes inaccurate information and lacks objectivity because it opposes the government. The dispute reportedly began in 2007, when El Universo published an article alleging that Correa had hired his relatives to work for the government.

Released

*Milton CHACAGUASAY FLORES: editor and director of the weekly newspaper La Verdad, based in Machala, southern Ecuador.
Date of arrest: 30 November 2008. Sentence: 10 months.
Charge: criminal libel. Released: May 2009.
Details of trial: In late 2007, a judge brought a libel suit against Chacaguasay, claiming that the editor had accused him of corruption in a report published in La Verdad in September that year. According to Chacaguasay, the report in question was not written by him or his staff but by a third party who had paid for its publication. The piece reportedly requested the National Judiciary Council to review a sentence issued by the judge, who was not named, that was considered to be unfair. Chacaguasay was acquitted of the charges in May 2008, but was found guilty on appeal before a different court on 15 November 2008 and sentenced to 10 months’ imprisonment. He was arrested and jailed on 30 November. In February 2008, the same court had given the editor an eight-month prison sentence for allegedly libelling the leader of the Christian Social Party, whom Chacasaguay had reportedly linked to corruption in Machala municipality. The first sentence was pending appeal by the National Court of Justice at the time of Chacaguasay’s imprisonment. Chacaguasay was transferred to a maximum security prison in Quito on 5 December 2008, reportedly due to fears for his safety. According to Chacaguasay’s son, on 1 December the politician who brought the first libel case left a death threat on the editor’s voicemail.
Update: In May it was reported that Chacaguasay was facing two other lawsuits, one seeking damages of US$400,000 on the basis of the sentence for which the journalist was imprisoned. According to Chacaguasay, the Social Rehabilitation Directorate had not responded to his request for parole, which he submitted in March.
Release: On 23 June 2009, the Ecuadorian Ministry of Justice and Human Rights informed PEN that Chacaguasay had been released in mid May after successfully applying for his sentence to be reduced as he had served half his sentence According to the Ministry, Chacagusay may be able to request that the case be reviewed following the reported appearance of the author of the offending article. The Ministry also indicated that the journalist was facing around five other law suits against him. [RAN 65/08 and updates]

GUATEMALA
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Killed: official investigation ongoing

Hugo ARCE BARRILLAS: journalist and writer, was found dead in a hotel room in Guatemala City on 23 January 2008. He had reportedly been shot through the heart. The official verdict was suicide, which Arce’s family contested. Arce is said to have written various articles against President Álvaro Colom and his wife in the run-up to the 2007 general elections, and some reports imply that the president had asked the editor of La Hora newspaper to stop publishing Arce’s opinion pieces. The president’s wife had reportedly filed criminal defamation charges against Arce in December 2007.
Investigation: In November 2008, Arce’s lawyer and family accused the special prosecutor in charge of the investigation of distorting evidence in order to present Arce’s death as suicide, and requested that the prosecutor be replaced.
New information: On 6 March 2009, Arce’s daughters reportedly met the Prosecutor General (Fiscal General) and claimed to have proof that the previous prosecutor had planted evidence and manipulated the crime scene.

Death threats

José PELICÓ PÉREZ: reporter and editor for the Centre for Reporting on Guatemala (Centro de Reportes Informativos sobre Guatemala - CERIGUA), reportedly received anonymous threatening telephone calls on 11 and 12 April 2008. The caller told Pelicó that he knew the journalist’s movements and warned him to “watch out”. It is thought that the threats are related to Pelicó’s work for CERIGUA, where he specialises in covering topics such as corruption, organised crime and drug-trafficking. Pelicó reportedly lodged a complaint with the Human Rights Ombudsperson’s Office (Procuraduría de los Derechos Humanos) and the Public Ministry (Ministerio Público). On 5 October 2008, Pelicó was reportedly followed as he drove home with his wife and son and then threatened with death by men carrying submachine guns. The men are said to have pointed the guns at Pelicó and said that the next time they would kill him. He says that a week earlier, armed men had passed his house shooting in the air and shouting: “We’ve found you, you are going to die.” Pelicó has supposedly been under police protection since the threats in April, yet there was reportedly no National Civil Police (PNC) officer on hand to intervene. The journalist says that the police had only come to his house twice since April and seemed unaware of the protection measures organised for him when they arrived after the latest incident. Little progress had been made in the investigation into the threats, according to Pelicó.
New information: In March 2009, CERIGUA reported that the Inter-American Court on Human Rights had called for Pelicó to be granted protective measures as a result of the threats he received in 2008. It also reported a number of suspicious incidents that may suggest surveillance of its staff’s email communications and phone lines.

Threatened

*Fredy LÓPEZ: reporter for the local newspaper El Poder de la Noticia and the Izabal department correspondent for the the Centre for Reporting on Guatemala (Centro de Reportes Informativos sobre Guatemala - CERIGUA), was reportedly threatened by the president of the Andes Development Association, based in Los Amates municipality on 8 May 2009. According to López, the president of the association called him and told him not to meddle with any of its members and to stop publishing stories on a land conflict land involving campesino farmers in the area. López reportedly suspected that the president had listened in on a telephone interview that he carried out with some of the farmers who had contacted him when the report on the land conflict was about to appear. He said that the members of the association are armed and have in the past injured two women with firearms during a land inspection.

HAITI
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On trial

Joseph Guyler C. DELVA: local correspondent for the BBC and Reuters and president of the local press group SOS Journalistes, was sentenced to one month in prison on 10 December 2008 for allegedly defaming former senator Rudolphe Boulos. The journalist has appealed the decision and is free pending the outcome of the appeal.
Charges: According to CPJ, Boulos had brought defamation charges against Delva earlier in 2008, alleging the journalist had defamed him by stating that he had failed to testify on the 2000 unsolved murder of Haitian journalist Jean-Léopold Dominique. According to Delva, who is also president of an independent committee responsible for evaluating stalled investigations into unsolved journalist killings, he based his statement on the official investigation into Dominique’s death. Delva has reportedly encouraged Boulos to testify on a number of other occasions since November 2007. After postponing the legal process against Delva for two months, Boulos was allowed to present his case to a Port-au-Prince court on 3 December 2008, when neither Delva not his lawyer were present.
Related threats: Delva also reported having received death threats which he believes are linked to the legal case. On 10 December 2008, the day he received the prison sentence, Delva found a threatening note on the windscreen of his car. He had also received repeated threatening calls on his mobile phone from unidentified individuals with blocked numbers in the previous three weeks. Delva reported the threats to the local police, who are investigating. In October 2007 he reportedly received death threats which caused him to leave Haiti temporarily. No further news as of 30 June 2009; PEN is seeking an update.

HONDURAS
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Killed: motive unknown

*Osman LÓPEZ: journalist for the presidential palace’s Department of Communications, the newspaper La Tribuna and a TV station, was shot dead in the capital, Tegucigalpa on 18 April 2009. López (27) was in a vehicle with his cousin and a friend when some strangers pretended to ask for a cigarette and then opened fire. López was killed instantly; his cousin was seriously injured and taken to hospital. At the time Reporters Without Borders stated that there was no indication that López’s murder was related to his journalism. However, given the fact that López worked for President Manuel Zelaya, who was deposed in a military coup in June, and the climate of mounting violence against journalists in the country, it seems possible that his death was in fact linked to his work.

*Bernardo RIVERA: journalist for the daily newspaper Tiempo, based in San Pedro Sula, and a radio station, as well as a former member of Congress, was kidnapped by armed men belonging to an organized crime group in Concepción, Santa Bárbara, on 14 March 2009. The authorities were unable to locate Rivera’s abductors. Reports vary as to whether the criminals asked his family to ask for a ransom. Rivera’s body was found on 8 July, almost four months after his abduction, in a ditch in the Buena area of Vista Copán department, western Honduras. The motive for his kidnapping and death is unknown.

Threatened

*Staff of Hondudiario.com: an online daily newspaper, were threatened on 8 June 2009 when four armed men stormed the newspaper’s offices in the capital city, Tegucigalpa. The gunmen, who stayed in the building for more than 20 minutes, fired shots into the air and destroyed equipment used by employees to write articles and upload them to the web page. According to the paper’s director, Arístides Aceituno, 30 employees were in the building at the time but none were injured. Aceituno said it was the second such assault on the daily in less than two weeks and viewed the attacks as an attempt to intimidate the publication. He believed that officials linked to the government of the now deposed President Manuel Zelaya who were unhappy with the paper’s critical coverage were behind the raid.

*Jhonny José LAGOS: editor of the newspaper El Libertador. On 30 June 2009 it was reported that a court had threatened to fine and imprison Lagos after his newspaper asked readers if they were for or against a “public consultation” on proposed constitutional changes in Honduras which was scheduled to take place on 28 June. The court reportedly wrote to Lagos warning him that he could be punished for the piece in accordance with Article 349 of the Criminal Code, which in fact provides for sentences for government officials rather than journalists. Lagos stated that he has also received death threats via telephone and email and that he will hold the “power groups” in the country responsible if anything happens to him. He reportedly believes that two former presidents of Honduras and two businessmen who own media outlets may be behind some of the threats.

MEXICO
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Killed

*Eliseo BARRÓN HERNÁNDEZ: crime reporter for the Torreón-based daily newspaper La Opinión and other local newspapers, in Gómez Palacio, Durango state, was abducted on 25 May 2009 and subsequently murdered. On the night of 25 May, around eight hooded and armed men reportedly entered Barrón’s house in Gómez Palacio, beat him in front of his wife and two children, and forced him into a vehicle parked outside. His body was found the next morning in a ditch in the municipality of Tlahualiko, Durango, next to Coahuila state. He had a gunshot wound to his head and according to some reports his body also bore signs of torture. Barrón (35) had covered police and crime for La Opinión, based in Torreón in the neighbouring state of Coahuila, for the last 10 years. It is understood that he had recently reported on a corruption scandal in the Torreón police as a result of which 302 police officers were fired and at least 20 others were investigated.
Investigation: The journalist’s family filed a complaint with the Attorney General’s Office (Procuraduría General de la República, PGR). The investigation was reportedly taken over by federal authorities for reasons that were unclear. On 28 May it was reported that the PGR had offered an award of five million pesos (approx. US$380,000) for information leading to the arrest of Barrón’s killers. On 6 June, five men presumed to be members of the Zetas, a paramilitary group involved in drug trafficking and extortion, were reportedly arrested in connection with Barrón’s murder. One of them, Israel Sánchez Jaimes, has allegedly confessed to firing the shot that killed Barrón on the orders of Zetas leader Lucio Fernández, who was reportedly angered by the media’s coverage of his activities.
Background: Barrón was the second journalist to be killed in Durango state in May 2009, following the fatal shooting of El Tiempo de Durango reporter Carlos Ortega Samper on 3 May - World Press Freedom Day (see below). Other journalists in the area have reportedly been threatened since Barrón’s death. For example, during his funeral on 27 May, six pieces of cloth with threats against journalists and army personnel appeared around Torreón, Coahuila. The threats were signed by the Poniente drug cartel and made specific reference to Barrón. Durango State is reportedly an important centre for the drugs trafficking trade. [RAN 24/09]

*Carlos ORTEGA SAMPER: columnist for the daily Durango Citybased newspaper El Tiempo de Durango, was shot dead in Santa María El Oro, Durango State, on 3 May 3009. The journalist was known for his criticism of local government corruption and had reportedly been threatened by local officials only days before. Ortega (52) was driving home when he was intercepted by four unidentified men who pulled him from his car and, after a heated argument, shot him three times in the head. He died at the scene. The previous day, 2 May, Ortega had written an article alleging that town mayor Martín Silvestre Herrera and local official Juan Manuel Calderón Guzmán had threatened him in connection with a 28 April article criticising hygiene conditions in a local abattoir. Ortega also indicated that he was investigating allegations of corruption by local policeman Salvador Flores Triana, and that these three men should be held responsible if anything happened to him. This article was awaiting publication at the time of Ortega’s death. The editor of El Tiempo de Durango reportedly believes that Ortega was killed in retaliation for his reporting local government corruption.
Previous attacks: Ortega previously came under attack in early 2009, when his house was shot at and his car set on fire. He reported the incident to the authorities but no actionwas taken. He had reportedly had previous clashes with the local authorities. In July 2005, following a formal complaint by Ortega, the State Commission of Human Rights for Durango investigated high ranking members of the local public security forces and concluded that some elements had violated the journalist’s human rights.
Investigation: The state attorney’s office is in charge of the investigation. As of 26 May, authorities were reportedly still investigating the murder and had not made any details public.
Background: Ortega, who was also a lawyer, had worked for El Tiempo de Durango for a year and for the five previous years for another regional daily, El Siglo de Durango. [RAN 21-09]

Killed: Official investigation ongoing

Gerardo Israel GARCIA PIMENTEL: journalist for the daily newspaper La Opinión, based in Michoacán, western Mexico, was shot dead while driving his motorcycle in Uruapan, Michoacán state, on 8 December 2007. Realising that he was being followed, García Pimentel pulled up at the hotel where he was living with his family, but on arrival in the car park he was shot approximately 20 times by unidentified men wearing hoods. The journalist had reported on agricultural issues for several years. The General Prosecutor’s Office was in charge of the investigation of the case. On 5 March 2008, the Mexican Senate agreed to ask federal authorities to investigate García Pimentel’s murder. As of late 2008, there was reportedly no progress in the investigation. No further news as of 30 June 2009; PEN is seeking confirmation that the investigation is ongoing.
Background: Another La Opinión reporter, Mauricio Estrada Zamora went missing on 14 February 2008 (see below).

Miguel Ángel GUTIÉRREZ ÁVILA: anthropologist, linguist, author of a number of books on the indigenous people of Guerrero state and activist for the rights of the Amuzgo people, was killed late on 25 July 2008 or the early hours of 26 July while driving towards the capital of Guerrero.
Circumstances of death: Gutierrez’s body was found covered in bruises and cuts by the side of the Acapulco-Pinotepa highway near La Caridad community in the municipality of San Marcos on the morning of 26 July 2008. He had been driving towards the capital of Guerrero, Chilpancingo de los Bravo. Although initial police reports suggested that Gutiérrez (53) died as the result of a car accident, it is thought that he was beaten to death. He had been working on a documentary on indigenous cultures and traditions but had reportedly also been documenting human rights violations by the authorities. According to his family, the vehicle in which Gutiérrez was travelling was untouched and only his filming equipment had been stolen. A few days before his death, between 23 and 25 July, Gutiérrez had visited the Suljaa’ and Cozoyoapan communities in Costa Chica, Guerrero, for a documentary film he was making on indigenous cultures and traditions, entitled ‘La Danza del Tigre’ (The Dance of the Tiger). During his visit, Gutiérrez had also documented alleged human rights violations by the authorities against the staff of the community radio station Radio Ñomndaa/ La Palabra del Agua (The Word of the Water), including an interview with Ñomndaa founder David Valtierra Arnago, which Gutiérrez reportedly intended to include in his documentary.
Investigation: According to local press reports, one lead pointed to the involvement of Aceadeth Rocha Ramírez, mayor of Xochistlahuaca municipality in Costa Chica. Rocha is allegedly one of a number of local political leaders opposed to indigenous movements and Radio Ñomndaa. Another lead suggested that Gutiérrez may have angered the authorities by filming members of the Federal Investigations Agency (Agencia Federal de Investigación, AFI) as they raided the radio station. As of April 2009, the crime reportedly remained unsolved. PEN is seeking further information and confirmation that the investigation is ongoing.
Background: Gutiérrez had researched the indigenous people of southern Guerrero for more than 20 years, particularly in Costa Chica. He had been involved in various cultural projects there, including Radio Ñomndaa and the establishment of the first Amuzgo community library.
Publications: His publications include: La tradición oral afromestiza en México (1985), Nabor Ojeda Caballero, el batallador del sur (1991), La conjura de los negros – cuentos de la tradición oral afromestiza de la costa chica de Guerreo y Oaxaca (1993), Danzas y música de origen africano en la Costa Chica de Guerrero (1993), Déspotas y caciques – una antropología política de los amuzgos de Guerrero (2001) and La historia del estado de Guerrero a través de su cultura – una perspectiva antropológica (2008). [RAN 42/08]

José Armando RODRÍGUEZ CARREÓN: crime reporter for local daily El Diario, based in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua state, was shot at least eight times by an unidentified person as he was about to drive his daughter to school on the morning of 13 November 2008. He died at the scene. His daughter, who was also in the car at the time, was uninjured. An investigation was begun, with Rodríguez’ journalism as a possible motive.
Previous threats: Rodríguez (40), who had more than 10 years of experience of reporting on crime, in particular murders, had been the target of several death threats in the year prior to his death. For example, in January 2008 he reportedly received a telephone call where the caller told him “you are going to die if you keep on talking” (te vas a morir si sigues hablando) and in February 2008 he was sent a text message telling him to “tone it down”. At that time he was reportedly covering drugrelated violence and organized crime in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua state. Following these threats, Rodríguez temporarily left Mexico for the United States. However, he refused to stop covering crime stories. According to local press reports, the journalist had received further death threats in recent months and had been offered security measures by the state authorities but he had considered them unnecessary. However another version suggests that Rodríguez had asked for protection from the attorney general’s office but this request had been turned down. It has also been reported that a few days before his death, Rodríguez had published an article linking the nephew of the attorney general to drug traffickers.
Related attacks: In the weeks following Rodríguez’ murder, death threats were received by other journalists for El Diario and other media in Ciudad Juárez and Chihuahua state, including by Jorge Luis Aguirre, director and editor of the online political newspaper La Polaka, who subsequently fled to the USA with his family (see Death Threats below). On 6 November 2008, a decapitated head had reportedly been left at Journalists’ Square in Ciudad Juárez. Rodríguez’ wife, also a journalist, reportedly feared for her safety and that of her children.
Investigation: The state prosecutor and the federal Special Prosecutor on Crimes against Journalists (Fiscalía Especial de Delitos Cometidos contra Periodistas, FEADP) are reportedly in charge of the investigation. On 23 June 2009, it was reported that the Chihuahua state attorney general’s office had sent the findings of its investigation to the federal attorney general’s office (PGR) in February so that the alleged mastermind and his accomplices, reportedly drug cartel members, could be arrested. Despite this, no arrests had taken place. However, the PGR representative in Chihuahua subsequently denied that the investigation is complete or that the identity or whereabouts of the assassins are known. [RAN 62/08]

Miguel Angel VILLAGÓMEZ VALLE: editor and publisher of a daily regional tabloid newspaper Noticias de Michoacán, based in Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán state, was abducted and shot dead on 9 October 2008. Villagomez (29) was kidnapped after leaving his newspaper’s office in Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán state, after 10pm on 9 October. His body was found in a rubbish tip near La Unión, just inside in the neighbouring state of Guerrero, during a routine police patrol in the early hours of 10 October. The editor had been repeatedly shot in the back and neck at around midnight the previous night. Villagómez had reportedly received a threatening phone call from a member of “Los Zetas” (the Zeds), paramilitary criminal gangs linked to drugs traffickers, particularly El Golfo (the Gulf) cartel, about a month before his murder, and had warned his family to be alert. Noticias de Michoacán often reports on organised crime, corruption and drug trafficking.
Investigation: On 13 November 2008, it was reported that the authorities were working on the assumption that an organised crime group was responsible for the murder. The Guerrero state attorney general’s office was in charge of the investigation but had not reported any progress. A local press report dated 8 June 2009 indicated that the case had been transferred to the Public Ministry (Ministerio Público) in La Unión municipality in Guerrero, but that there had been no progress in the investigation. PEN is seeking further information. [RAN 54/08]

Disappeared: presumed killed

Alfredo JIMÉNEZ MOTA: crime reporter for the Hermosillo daily El Imparcial in the north-western state of Sonora, has not been seen since 2 April 2005. That evening he was due to meet a source whom he had earlier described to a colleague as “very nervous”. The journalist had recently published articles on local drug traffickers. He had also broken major stories about the alleged links between drug traffickers, police, prosecutors and state officials in Hermosillo, which had reportedly made him a number of enemies.
Details of disappearance: In the days before his disappearance, Jiménez Mota, a former boxer, reportedly appeared upset and said that he thought he was being followed. On the evening of 2 April 2005, he went to a local restaurant to meet a source, reportedly the deputy director of the local prison, Andres Montoya Garcia. Montoya says that he drove Jimenez to at a local convenience store, dropping him off around 10.30pm. According to El Imparcial, Jimenez’ mobile phone records showed three phone calls: one to Montoya, another to local deputy prosecutor Raul Fernando Galvan Rojas, and a third person that the newspaper could not trace. Montoya and Galvan were later cleared by federal authorities. Both resigned shortly after Jimenez’ disappearance and have disappeared from the public eye.
Investigation: On 25 April 2005, the Sub Procurator’s Office Investigation Unit Specialising in Organised Crime (Subprocuraduria de Investigación Especializada en Delincuencia Organizada, SIEDO) opened an investigation into the disappearance. A year later, in April 2006, it was reported that the SIEDO’s two lines of investigation involved Jiménez’ coverage of the families running the drug trade in Sonora, and possible unlawful activities by government officials. Jiménez was now presumed to have been killed. In January 2007, it was reported that a municipal police officer of Novojoa, Sonora state, had given statements to the National Commission for Human Rights (Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, CNDH) and the Attorney General (Procuraduria General de la República, PGR) implicating local authorities in Jiménez’ disappearance. The officer named a former Navojoa Police Chief, two criminal investigation police officers, two local prosecutors and a brother of the governor of Sonora. He then reportedly went into hiding after receiving repeated threats. In April 2007, it was reported that none of the named suspects had been questioned about the case. On 1 April 2008, on the third anniversary of Jiménez’ disappearance, the PGR issued a report on the measures that had been taken to investigate the case to date. All had proved inconclusive. The PGR pledged to continue the investigation until the facts have been established. Free expression organisations noted that no advance had been reported regarding the implication of local authorities, despite the leads mentioned above. In June 2008, Sonora governor Eduardo Bours made public a letter that sought to link his government to the Jimenez case. Allegedly written by one of Jimenez’ abductors, the letter details the reporter’s supposed kidnapping, torture and murder, and implicates several local officials as well as the governor’s brother. Bours denied any involvement and called for a new investigation.
New information: On 19 March 2009, the Inter American Press Association (IAPA) announced that it had submitted Jimenez’s case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR). On 2 April, the fourth anniversary of Jimenez’ disappearance, Jiménez’ family said they had not received any information about SIEDO’s investigation since the previous year.

Disappeared

José Antonio GARCIA APAC: editor of the newspaper Ecos de la Costa, from Lázaro Cárdenas, Michoacán state, was last seen on 20 November 2006. That evening he was on his way from Tepalcatepec to Morelia, when he was reportedly intercepted by three people in a pick-up truck, who took him with them. His car was not found. According to his family, García had reported being followed earlier that year. He was covering cases related to drug trafficking in Michoacán at the time. He was also widely known to have compiled a list of allegedly corrupt officials before he disappeared.
Investigation: On 20 November 2007, Garcia’s wife, Rosa Isela Caballero, reported that she had sent a letter to the General Prosecutor’s Office in July 2007 enquiring about the results of the investigation into her husband’s disappearance, but had not yet received a clear response. According to Caballero, three representatives of the prosecutor’s office had been called to the investigation, and the federal justice ministry had also intervened, but without any results. As of December 2008, no substantial progress in the investigation had been reported. Caballero was continuing to publish Ecos de la Cuenca in memory of her husband. As of January 2009, the investigation was reportedly ongoing but had not made any substantial progress. No further news as of 30 June; PEN is seeking an update.

Rodolfo RINCÓN TARACENA: journalist for the regional daily Tabasco Hoy. Rincón (54) was last seen leaving his newspaper’s office in Villahermosa, south-eastern Mexico, on the night of 20 January 2007. He had reportedly told his colleagues that he would return shortly. It seems highly likely that his disappearance is linked to his reporting on organised crime. The journalist had reportedly just completed an article on a criminal gang preying on cash-machine customers in Villahermosa which specified the locations of the criminals’ safe houses. The previous day, Tabasco Hoy had run a major story on illicit ‘drugstores’ (narcotiendas) run by traffickers, which named several suspects and showed the location of the stores. Rincón had reportedly received regular threats since 2006. One made about a month before his disappearance had particularly alarmed him. Rincón’s family reported the case to the Office of the General Prosecutor of the state of Tabasco (Procuraduría General de la Justicia del Estado de Tabasco, PGJE) on 23 January 2007. Tabasco Hoy has continued to face harassment. In May 2007, the severed head of a local councillor was left outside the newspaper’s offices in Villahermosa. The paper has also received threats from “Los Zetas” (the Zeds), paramilitary criminal gangs linked to drugs traffickers, particularly El Golfo (the Gulf) cartel. Rincón’s long term girlfriend, also a journalist, has reportedly stated that she believes that that corrupt officials as well as drug traffickers are behind his disappearance.
Investigation: As of December 2008 the authorities had still not reported any substantial progress in the investigation. As of 20 January 2009, two years after Rincón’s disappearance, neither the PGJE nor the federal attorney general’s office (Procuraduría General de la República, PGR) had reported any progress in the investigation. No further news as of 30 June; PEN is seeking an update.

Disappeared: motive unknown

Mauricio ESTRADA ZAMORA: reporter for newspapers La Opinión de Apatzingán and La Opinión de Michoacán, based in Michoacán state, southern México, was reported missing on 14 February 2008. On that day, La Opinión de Michoacán stated that the reporter had last been seen on 12 February, when he left the newspaper’s premises for home, and that he had not answered calls to his mobile phone. According to the newspaper, on the morning of 13 February the journalist’s vehicle was found by a local public safety official, parked with its doors open and the engine running. Estrada’s laptop and camera, along with the car’s stereo, were missing.
Investigation: La Opinión de Michoacán requested the intervention of the Michoacán state Attorney General’s Office, which reportedly sent its anti-kidnapping team to the region in order to search for the reporter. The newspaper believed that Estrada’s disappearance may have been linked to a problem he had in January 2008 with a Federal Investigations Agency (Agencia Federal de Investigación, AFI) agent in the area. The investigation was being conducted by the local office of the federal attorney general that stated that it could not identify the AFI agent, or make any connection between Estrada’s disappearance and a federal agent. They dismissed any links to a criminal group. As of July 2008, the Michoacán state prosecutor had reportedly not provided any information or update on the investigation. The case was still being treated as a disappearance. As of December 2008, Estrada’s whereabouts were still unknown and there had reportedly been no progress in the investigation. The same month it was reported that the Special Prosecutor for Crimes against Journalists was of the opinion that Estrada’s disappearance has only tenuous links to his work as a journalist. As of January 2009, the authorities had reportedly not made public any results of the investigation. No further news as of 30 June 2009; PEN is seeking an update.
Background: Another journalist for La Opinión de Michoacán, Gerardo Israel García Pimentel,was murdered in December 2007.

Imprisoned: investigation

Jesús LEMUS BARAJAS: editor/ publisher of El Tiempo daily newspaper, based in La Piedad, Michoacán state.
Date of arrest: 7 May 2008. Place of arrest: Cuerámaro, Guanajuato state.
Alleged offence: Having links to drug traffickers; exact charges unclear. It is feared that his arrest and imprisonment are related to his legitimate activities as a journalist.
Prison: Puente Grande high-security federal prison, Jalisco state.
Details of arrest and detention: Lemus was reportedly investigating drug trafficking in Cuerámaro, Guanajuato state on 7 May 2008 when he was arrested along with two of his sources, and accused of involvement in trade for ‘The Family’, an offshoot of the powerful El Golfo (Gulf) drug cartel. Lemus was detained incommunicado for 48 hours by Guanajuato state ministerial police, who reportedly beat him. On 9 May the three men were transferred to Puentecilla prison in Guanajuato, where the federal public ministry took over the case. Lemus’ preventive custody was confirmed on 15 May, and on 27 May, he was transferred to a high security federal prison in Puente Grande, in the neighbouring state of Jalisco where he remains as of 31 December 2008.
Reporting that may have led to arrest: In addition to Lemus’ reporting on drug trafficking, in March 2008 he had exposed harassment of the media by the mayor of La Piedad, which led to the detention of two El Tiempo reporters on charges of ‘incitement to rebellion’. He had also been critical of unfair allocation of official advertising in the municipality and of police intimidation of El Tiempo news vendors.
Concerns: For the first 48 hours after his arrest Lemus was reportedly held incommunicado and beaten by Guanajuato state ministerial police. There are fears that the drug trafficking charges against the journalist are fabricated; it is understood that no physical evidence has been produced. It is thought that his arrest may in fact have been linked to his critical reporting on drug trafficking routes and on local authorities, including harassment of the media by the police and alleged unfair allocation of official advertising in the municipality. There has been high level concern about the case in Mexico, including from the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) which has reportedly opened an investigation into the detention. Lemus’ wife has reportedly suffered harassment since his arrest: on 31 July 2008 their home was searched by solders without a warrant, who questioned her about her activities and those of other family members.
Update: Lemus was apparently still detained as of 30 June 2009; PEN is seeking an update. [RAN 36-08].

Roberto TEPEPEXTECO HIPÓLITO: Arcelia correspondent for the newspaper El Debate de los Calentanos.
Date of arrest: 6 September 2008. Place of arrest: Guerrero state.
Alleged offence: Suspected involvement in organised crime and unlawful possession of firearms. There are fears that the charges may be related to his legitimate activities as a journalist.
Details of arrest: Tepepexteco Hipólito was reportedly detained by the military while on his way to cover an armed confrontation between rival gangs of suspected drug traffickers from Mexico and Guerrero states in Arcelia, Guerrero, on 6 September 2008. While on his way to the scene, he was reportedly stopped by men in Federal Investigations Agency (Agencia Federal de Investigaciones, AFI) uniforms who allegedly turned out to be combatants fleeing the authorities. The men took the journalist with them but abandoned him soon after when their vehicle broke down. Tepepexteco Hipólito reportedly then requested assistance from a passing military convoy, which allowed him to travel with them and later detained two individuals carrying firearms and grenades. The journalist was taken to the Federal Attorney General’s Office (Procuraduría General de la República, PGR) in Chilpancingo as a witness. However the PGR concluded that his testimony lacked credibility and on 9 September 2008 charged him and the two other detained individuals with “suspected involvement in organised crime, amassing of weapons, violation of the Federal Law on Firearms and Explosives, possession of firearms that are for the exclusive use of the armed forces and possession of cartridges.”
Concerns: According to his editor, Tepepexteco Hipólito is innocent but his testimony may have been confused as he is from a community where a local dialect is spoken and does not speak Spanish well. The mayor of Arcelia reportedly held a press conference on 8 September to express his support for Tepepexteco Hipólito and to call for his release. The journalist has in the past reportedly worked as a secretary for the Arcelia municipal government.
Update: No further news as of 30 June 2009; PEN is seeking an update.

Brief detention

*Simón TIBURCIO CHÁVEZ: editor of the local paper Nuevo Amanecer, was reportedly arrested by municipal police on the orders of the mayor of Alvarado in Veracruz state on 9 May 2009 and detained incommunicado for more than 24 hours. Tiburcio was attending a public event organized by the mayor’s office when the mayor saw the reporter and ordered police to detain him, without providing a reason. It is thought that the mayor was angered by an article Tiburcio had published two days earlier criticising the mayor’s administration, including allegations that it has not paid the city hall’s utility bills and that the mayor had used public funds for personal ends. Tiburcio says he was aware that the police had been looking for him. He was taken to a room where he was confined from the evening of 9 May until the evening of 10 May, during which time he was unable to communicate with anyone. On 9 May, Tiburcio’s family lodged a complaint for illegal detention to the state prosecutor’s office but this was not acknowledged by the municipal authorities until the next day, when the mayor filed a complaint against Tiburcio for “insult to authority”. The mayor claimed that it was not the first time that the reporter had offended him and that Nuevo Amanecer was funded by candidates of the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party (Partido Revolucionario Institucional, PRI) (the mayor is a member of the a member of the rival National Action Party - Partido Acción Nacional, PAN)

Death threats

Jorge Luis AGUIRRE: director and editor of the online political newspaper ‘La Polaka’, reportedly received a telephone death threat while on his way to attend the funeral of murdered journalist José Armando Rodríguez Carreón (see above) in Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua state, on 13 November 2008. Aguirre says he received a call on his mobile telling him that he would be next. He suspected the threat came from the authorities rather than an organized crime group, although he noted that the two are often linked in Ciudad Juárez. Aguirre had reportedly received threatening emails and telephone calls on several previous occasions telling him to tone down his editorial stance. Following the latest death threat he left Mexico for the United States with his family. He said he did not seek the help of the authorities as he did not trust them. ‘La Polaka’ covers political events in both Ciudad Juárez and El Paso, Texas.
New information: Aguirre, who is now living in El Paso, Texas, has reportedly helped set up the Mexican Journalists in Exile group (Periodistas Mexicanos en el Exilio, PEMEXX), which seeks to facilitate the process of political asylum for foreign reporters, among other aims.

*José Bladimir ANTUNA GARCÍA: crime reporter for the newspaper El Tiempo, has received repeated death threats since late 2008 and on 28 April 2009 was the target of an apparent assassination attempt in Durango, Durango state. On the morning of 28 April, as Antuna was leaving for work, he was approached by a van with tinted windows and no licence plates. An armed individual got out of the van and took aim at Antuna, who ran back into his house. The shots hit the front of the building. Antuna reported the incident to the Durango State Public Prosecutor’s Office (Procuraduría General de Justicia del Estado de Durango). However, he has reportedly continued to receive threats. The most recent came on 26 May, the same day that Durango-based journalist Eliseo Barrón Hernández was found dead after having been kidnapped from his home the night before (see above). On that day, according to Antuna, an anonymous call was made to the El Tiempo offices saying that he would be next. Antuna had reportedly exchanged information about police corruption and organised crime with Barrón on several occasions. Over the previous seven months, Antuna had received numerous threats on his mobile phone and on his work telephone warning him not to publish “delicate” information. The caller sometimes identified himself as a member of Los Zetas, a paramilitary group reportedly linked to the Gulf drug cartel. One of the calls was apparently made from inside the Gómez Palacio penitentiary in Durango.

Miguel BADILLO CRUZ and Ana Lilia PÉREZ MENDOZA (f): editor and reporter respectively for the magazines Contralínea and Fortuna. In early December 2008, it was reported that Badillo and Pérez had been the target of legal harassment and death threats for about a year in connection with their critical reporting on powerful Mexican companies. The two journalists had reportedly suffered harassment following a November 2006 report linking the gas consortium Grupo Zeta to alleged influence peddling to obtain business contracts. Although the allegations were apparently well founded, Grupo Zeta president Jesús Zaragoza López sued the two journalists for damages in August 2007. Since then Zaragoza’s lawyers have reportedly been verbally harassing and threatening Badillo and Pérez when they attended legal proceedings, including warning the journalists that they have instructions from Zaragoza to make them “disappear”. Badillo and Pérez also report being subjected to death threats and legal harassment as a result of their 2007 report on alleged irregularities in the awarding of contracts to naval company Oceanografía by the state oil company Petróleos Mexicanos (PEMEX). The report reportedly implicated a number of government officials, including current President Calderón (former head of PEMEX) and some of his family members, and led to an official investigation. In November 2007, Oceanografía sued Badillo for damaging its reputation and in August 2008 the company filed defamation complaints against both Badillo and Mendoza, as well as two other journalists. Badillo and Pérez have lodged a complaint with the National Commission for Human Rights (Comisión Nacional de Derechos Humanos, CNDH) and the Special Prosecutor for Crimes against Journalists at the Attorney General’s Office (Fiscalía Especializada de Atención a Delitos contra Periodistas de la Procuraduría General de la República).
New information: On 16 January 2009, Badillo was briefly detained in Mexico City and charged with ‘insult to authority’ (desacato) by a judge in Jalisco state, allegedly for refusing to receive court summonses that were sent to him. The arrest warrant was requested by a subsidiary of Grupo Zeta. A warrant was reportedly also issued for Pérez but she avoided arrest by going into hiding for a few days. Badillo’s lawyer filed a complaint with the Federal District Human Rights Commission since the journalist believes he was illegally arrested: according to Badillo, he never received the summonses he is said to have ignored. On 11 February, a lawyer for Grupo Zeta tried to enter the Contralínea offices with public officials from Guadalajara state and Mexico City, who claimed to have to present a search warrant but in fact reportedly failed to do so. The public officials, who apparently wanted access to the publication’s archives, harassed the magazine’s staff both physically and verbally for 40 minutes. This was reportedly the second time that judicial authorities had tried to break into the Contralínea offices in 2009 as part of the many lawsuits initiated by Grupo Zeta after the magazine published several stories denouncing Grupo Zeta of corruption in its dealings with PEMEX. PEN monitoring.

Lydia CACHO RIBEIRO (f): author, journalist and social activist. On trial for criminal defamation throughout 2006; acquitted in January 2007. However, continues to be the target of harassment and threats due to her investigative journalism.
Details of arrest and trial: On 16 December 2005 Cacho was arrested and subsequently charged with criminal defamation. The charges were brought against her by textile businessman José Camel Nacif Borge who is cited in her 2005 book Los Demonios del Edén: el poder detrás de la pornografía (The Demons of Eden: the power behind pornography) as having connections with a member of an international child pornography and prostitution network. According to Cacho, she was tortured during her detention. The charges against Cacho were dismissed on 2 January 2007 and the trial was discontinued.
Ongoing legal case: On 29 November 2007, the Mexican Supreme Court of Justice ruled that there had been no serious violation of Cacho’s constitutional rights when she was arrested and transferred from Quintana Roo to Puebla in December 2005. In April 2008, the Attorney General’s Office issued arrest warrants for five public servants from Puebla allegedly involved in Cacho’s illegal detention in 2005. These were said to include the former attorney general, a minister, a police commander and various criminal justice system officials, who allegedly falsified paperwork in order to facilitate Cacho’s arrest. However, as of June 2009 they are yet to be detained. In June 2008, a court in Cacho’s home state of Quintana Roo ruled that although there was evidence of arbitrary detention and torture it could not accept her case for jurisdictional reasons and recommended that she take the case to Puebla. Cacho’s appeal was rejected in January 2009. She alleges that her file had been altered and key information removed by the Attorney General’s office, weakening her case. She believes it impossible to get justice in Puebla given the role of the state authorities in her ordeal and is preparing to submit her case to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. On 16 March, Mexico’s National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) concluded that Cacho had been tortured and her right to freedom of expression had been violated. It issued a recommendation to the governors of Puebla and Quintana Roo state to conduct an investigation into the police officers who arrested Cacho as well as provide the author with compensation for any damages suffered. The state governors had 15 working days (until 3 April 2009) to decide whether or not to accept the CNDH’s recommendations.
Further harassment and threats in 2009: Cacho has been subjected to death threats since the publication of her book in 2005. Most recently, in late May 2009, Cacho reported being followed and watched by unknown individuals, some of them armed. On 12 May a man was reportedly seen taking photos of Cacho’s apartment in Cancún and inspecting her car. On 14 May the same man, this time carrying a gun, was seen outside the door of Cacho’s apartment; he left when a neighbour passed by. On 15 May two men in a different car was parked outside her apartment door for two hours and reappeared outside her office in Cancún that afternoon. On 22 May the first man – again armed - came back to her home with another man and filmed her apartment with a video camera. According to Cacho, she has also been receiving death threats via her blog since February 2009, including one which reportedly said that she would soon appear with her throat slit. Cacho has reported these incidents to the Quintano Roo State police; she was told that the number plates she reported did not correspond to the right model of car and that the police would continue to look for the owners of the cars she saw. The police reportedly do not consider the threats or the presence of an armed civilian to be a criminal offence.
Awards: In November 2008, Cacho was awarded the Tucholsky prize from Swedish PEN. She has also won the 2008 UNESCO/ Guillermo Cano World Press Freedom Prize, the 2007 Oxfam/Novib PEN Award for Free Expression (2007), and the Amnesty International Ginetta Sagan Award for Women and Children’s Rights (2007).
Honorary Member: Scottish PEN. [RAN 54/05 and updates]

*Staff of El Diario newspaper: based in Parral municipality, Ciudad Juárez, Chihuahua state, reportedly received death threats on 28 May 2009 after publishing information about alleged local drug traffickers. On 22 May, the newspaper published an article on the detention in Parral of the presumed second-in-command of the Sinaloa cartel. The piece included detailed information provided by the National Public Prosecutor’s Office. On 28 May, an unidentified caller to the El Diario’s office warned the secretary that the newspaper should stop publishing information about the arrest and threatened to kill the secretary as well as a reporter. The newspaper directors reportedly decided to comply with the request in order to avoid endangering their staff members.

*Federico VITE LÓPEZ, Álvaro SOLÍS CASTILLO and Miguel Ángel ANDRADE TORRES: reporters for the newspapers Intolerancia, El Columnista and Cambio, respectively, were reportedly assaulted and threatened with death by policemen in Puebla state on 14 March 2009. The three journalists were returning home in the early hours of 14 March when they were stopped by three armed men in police uniform who said that they were undertaking an anti-drug operation. In separate interviews, the policemen pointed a gun at Andrade Torres, took Solis Castillo’s wallet and slapped him when he asked why he was being harassed, and became violent towards Vite López when he said he worked for a newspaper. The police officers reportedly then threw the journalists to the ground, handcuffed them and put them in their vehicle, where they were beaten and threatened; the officers were apparently angry at the press’ portrayal of the police force. The police then drove the journalists to the outskirts of the city where they released them after threatening them with death. The journalists reported the incident to the state prosecutor’s office (Ministerio Público del Estado) and the municipal department for public safety (Secretaría de Seguridad Pública municipal).

Juan Antonio ZAVALA HERNÁNDEZ and Carlos DURÁN RANGEL: editor-in-chief and reporter/ photographer respectively of the weekly newspaper Mi Ciudad, have both been threatened by a local mayor. In early December 2008, Zavala received an anonymous telephone call threatening his life and those of his staff. Although the caller did not identify himself, Zavala believes he recognized the voice as that of Felipe Durán Muñoz, mayor of Romita municipality in Guanajuato state and a member of the National Action Party (Partido Acción Nacional, PAN). Durán Muñoz has reportedly been harassing the newspaper and its staff since Mi Ciudad published comments by members of the general public questioning the mayor’s administration as well as photographs taken of the mayor while drunk. Previously Durán Muñoz has unsuccessfully attempted to sue the newspaper for extortion and damaging his reputation. Two days after the threatening call to Zavala, Durán Rangel was attacked by the mayor during a photo shoot previously authorised by the mayor’s office. Durán Muñoz, who appeared to be drunk, damaged Durán Rangel’s camera before punching, insulting and threatening the journalist. The police eventually intervened and ordered the journalist to leave. The mayor later denied any knowledge of the incident and suggested that the journalist may have been drunk and mistaken the identity of his assailant. On 18 December 2008 it was reported that the newspaper and Durán Rangel had filed a complaint against the mayor for issuing death threats, causing injury and damaging equipment.
New information: As of March 2009, the harassment by the mayor continues. On 28 March 2009, Zavala’s home in Romita municipality, Guanajuato state, which also houses the Mi Ciudad offices, was reportedly shot at. The building was hit 10 times but no one was injured. Zavala said he suspected Mayor Durán Muñoz of being behind the attack. The assailants were reportedly travelling in a vehicle similar to one owned by the mayor.

Attacked

*Federico CARRERA HERNÁNDEZ: correspondent for Noticias newspapers, based in Oaxaca State, stated on 3 April 2009 that he had been illegally detained, beaten and robbed of his belongings by municipal police officers from Teotitlán when returning from the municipality of Huatla. Carrera said he held the mayor of Teotitlán responsible for the police’s actions as the mayor had reportedly instructed the officers to continue harassing him.

*Moisés GARCÍA CASTRO: director of the newspaper El Debate, in Sinaloa state. García’s house was the target of a machine gun attack on the night of 9 February 2009. The gunmen were not identified and the motive of the attack remains unknown. Garcia Castro was given police protection on the state governor’s orders.
Background: On 17 November 2008, El Debate was attacked when two grenades were thrown into the paper’s offices. The blasts caused some damage to the building but no one was injured. The authorities were unable to locate the individuals responsible for the attack. According to El Debate, the previous week unidentified individuals had left a mock human head in a black bag at one of the newspaper’s entrances; glued to it was a poster with the country’s most wanted criminals, issued by the State Attorney General’s Office. The State Attorney General’s Office was reportedly investigating the incident.

*José Luis ORTEGA VIDAL: editing director for the daily Notisur, based in Coatzacoalcos, Veracruz, was seriously injured after falling down a five meter deep hole while escaping from a former municipal councillor, on 3 March 2009. Ortega was at a local bar with some of his colleagues when the former councillor reportedly approached him to reprimand him for articles that the journalist had written about him. The discussion turned into a fight resulting in the former councillor asking his bodyguard for his gun and then proceeding to chase Ortega and his colleague Jorge Tolentino. Ortega sustained serious head injuries. He was taken to a hospital where his condition was deemed critical. At the time of reporting, the former councillor was yet to be summoned by the authorities. It is reportedly not the first time that he has acted aggressively towards journalists.

*Carlos VELASCO MOLINA: director of the weekly El Correo de Oaxaca. Velasco’s house was attacked in the early hours of 9 January 2009. Two Molotov cocktails were thrown at the building, starting a fire but causing no injuries since the journalist and his family had moved house a few weeks prior to the incident. Velasco accused the Oaxaca state governor and his spokesman of staging the attacks, as he believes that they were a response to various articles in which he criticizes Oaxaca’s current government. The governor’s spokesman reportedly said that he thought Velasco had staged the attack himself.

*Martín VELÁZQUEZ GONZÁLEZ: reporter for the monthly newspaper Sin Fronteras, was attacked in Huimanguillo municipality, Tabasco state, on 1 May 2009. The attack took place when Velázquez was distributing copies of an issue of the newspaper that reported on allegations of misuse of public resources by a federal member of congress for the Democratic Revolution Party (Partido de la Revolución Democrática, PRD). Around five unidentified men got out of a van and attacked Velázquez’ vehicle with sticks, rocks and machetes, one of them hitting Velázquez on the shoulder with a machete. The men told him that the attack was in reprisal for “meddling with the boss”. The police reportedly failed to come to his assistance. When driving back to the newspaper offices in Villahermosa, Velázquez says he was followed by his assailants and since then other newspaper employees have reported being watched. The latest edition of Sin Fronteras had reported on a complaint made by municipal workers who said that officials were providing social assistance to those willing to support a certain congressman in an upcoming bid for the mayor’s seat. The newspaper filed a complaint with the authorities, including the Federal Public Prosecutor’s Office, on 4 May.

Threatened

*Miguel Ángel CASILLAS BÁEZ: editorial director of the newspaper Diario de los Altos, in Jalisco, was reportedly threatened on a number of occasions in March 2009. On 16 March, both Casillas’ personal and the newspaper’s email account were reportedly hacked into. A message from the hackers warned the journalists to be careful what they published and was signed by an individual purporting to be from the Jalisco State Congress. On 18 March, Casillas reportedly received a telephone call from a man who claimed to be from a section of the “Los Zetas” criminal gang. The caller insinuated that he was acting on the behalf of a politician who wished to harm Casillas and said that he and his family were at risk. Casillas believes that the threats stem from his reporting on human rights issues, particularly his critical coverage of a controversial dam development project in El Zapotillo, Los Altos region, Jalisco state. He said he feared for his life and those of his family members. Casillas made an official complaint to the Jalisco State Public Prosecutor’s Office and the State Human Rights Commission, but as of the end of March had yet to receive a reply. [RAN 19/09 – 31 March 2009]

*Ricardo GARCÍA JIMÉNEZ: journalist based in Oaxaca State, has been repeatedly threatened and harassed for his journalistic work since 2007. On 12 February 2007, he reportedly received an email warning him not to write about paedophilia or murders of journalists. He reportedly received similar threats on 13 June and 27 July 2007. On 2 August 2008, García was stopped by an unidentified man riding a motorcycle without any licence plates in his home town of Huajuapan de León who warned him to stop writing before fleeing. On 22 February 2009, García received another threatening email, purportedly from “the Z” (which could be “los Zetas” criminal group). The journalist also believes that his computer was hacked into and that some of his file names changed on 7 April 2009. García filed a report with the Office of the Special Prosecutor for Crimes against Journalists (Fiscalía Especial para la Atención de Delitos Cometidos contra Periodistas) and the Cyberspace Police on 13 April 2009.

*Carlos MARTÍNEZ GARCÍA: journalist for the national newspaper La Jornada, was reportedly threatened in Mexico City on 30 April 2009 after referring to a blog on missing children in two of his articles. Martínez was driving with wife when a youth shouted that “something bad would happen” if he didn’t stop using the “jimdo” website. The journalist had cited http://losperfectos.jimdo.com/, which compiles statistics on children who have gone missing from an orphanage and its alleged connection to a Christian movement, in his two most recent articles. He believes the threats come from a group that wants the blog to be shut down. Martínez says he has no connection with the people who run the website and had merely used it as a source. He reported the threats to the Mexico City Human Rights Commission (Comisión de Derechos Humano del Distrito Federal, CDHDF) and on 8 May was granted protective measures.

*Martín VALTIERRA GARCÍA: editor of Contrates de Comondú magazine and TV journalists, was reportedly threatened and harassed in March 2009. On 1 March, two vehicles belonging to Valtierra were burned. Prior to the incident he had reportedly been receiving threats from the son of the mayor of Comondú (also the mayor’s personal secre tary), for reporting on allegations of irregularities in the local administration. The journalist had also received threatening telephone messages from anonymous callers and reported having been followed on several occasions. On one occasion he believed that the vehicle following him belonged to a business associate of the mayor’s son, about whom Valtierra had also published critical information.

Harassed

*Staff of Balún Canan weekly newspaper: in Tijuana, Baja California state, were the target of police harassment in January and February 2009, with two raids on the newspaper premises without a search warrant, threats against several journalists and the arrest of two others. On 4 February, state police officers physically harassed assistant editor Isabel Mercado and threatened other members of staff with death. A few days earlier, on 31 January, journalists Juan Ojeda and Jesus Damas Ruiz had tried to film police activity occurring close to the premises, but the officers forcibly stopped them and proceeded to raid the newspaper offices. They later made the reporters get into a patrol car, where they were handcuffed and threatened, and had some possessions and money confiscated. Damas Ruiz sustained injuries to his neck and vertebrae as a result of the attack. Ojeda and Damas Ruiz were then charged with drinking alcoholic beverages in public, were not allowed to tell their version of the events, and were subsequently sentenced to 30 hours in detention and a 500 peso fine. The officers returned the possessions they had taken but not the money. Both journalists filed a complaint against the police officers for abuse of authority.

*Andrés GUARDIOLA GARCÍA-GÓMEZ: correspondent for the national newspaper Excélsior. In April 2009, it was reported that Guardiola been repeatedly harassed by officials working for the municipal government in León, Guanajuanto state, after reporting on the local government administration headed by mayor Vicente Guerrero Reynoso. The coverage included June 2008 revelations that security force personnel in León had been given classes on torture techniques, and another story on orders given to demolish a school in order to extend a church. According to Guardiola, after the first story was published, he was followed and photographed by police on several occasions. On 3 April, he and other journalists were reportedly denied access to the mayor’s office when they arrived to cover a new bathroom that was allegedly going to cost around US$30,000. Guardiola was also threatened by the mayor’s communications manager. He reportedly filed a complaint against the mayor with the state’s Human Rights Prosecutor’s Office (Procuraduría de los Derechos Humanos, PDH).

*Anabel Hernández (f): journalist with the online magazine Reporte Índigo, expressed fear for her safety in April 2009 after reportedly being harassed by Federal Public Security Secretary Genaro García Luna for publishing an article about him. On 27 March, Hernández reported that García Luna was building a US$1.4 million house in an exclusive area of Mexico City. The same day, TV journalists who went to the property to follow up on the story were detained, held incommunicado and interrogated for 15 hours, despite having identified themselves as journalists. On 31 March, García Luna said on a radio news programme that he was starting legal action against Reporte Índigo for the Hernández’ report, which he claimed put his family at risk and was part of a campaign to discredit him orchestrated by organised crime groups. On 2 April, the National Human Rights Commission (CNDH) stated that García Luna’s statements had put Hernández’ life and the lives of her family members at risk, especially as the journalist was pregnant, and requested García Luna, in his capacity as Federal Public Security Secretary, to provide Hernández and her family with protection.
Background: In a related incident, university professor and security specialist Roberto Vidal Méndez, was reportedly detained as he left a radio station after speaking about the construction of Luna García’s house. As of 2 April, Vidal, who is a law professor at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM), was being held incommunicado despite several lawyers having filed requests for his release. He allegedly faced drug and arms trafficking and money laundering charges.

Sanjuana MARTÍNEZ MONTEMAYOR (f): journalist and author, reported in September 2008 that Samborns, one of Mexico’s most popular bookstore chains (owned by Carlos Slim, the world’s second richest man), had attempted to block the sale of two of her books on sexual abuse in the Catholic Church in Mexico. According to Martínez, half of the 20,000 copies of her non fiction book, Prueba de Fe (Test of Faith) (Planeta, 2007), which documents allegations of a pederast network with links to Catholic cardinals and bishops, were in storage after being returned unpacked by the bookstores they had been sent to. When she threatened to file a complaint against the store on freedom of expression grounds, Samborns reportedly agreed to put the books in its self help and esoteric subjects section, eventually putting only 200 copies of the books up for sale, instead of the 3,000 intended by the publishing house. According to Martínez, following Samborns’ decision, other bookstores also restricted sales of the book, on the grounds that they were Catholic-based businesses. Martínez’ previous book Manto Púrpura (Purple Cloak) (Grijalbo, 2006), documents alleged abuses which had apparently been covered up by the Catholic church authorities in Mexico and the United States. It alleges that the archbishop of Mexico City, Cardinal Norberto Rivera, protected priest Nicolás Aguilar, accused of sexually abusing boys in the United States in 1987.
Background: Martínez has been threatened over her work in the past. In January 2007, she reported that she had been receiving death threats while covering allegations of child sexual abuse by a Catholic priest for the daily Mexico City-based newspaper La Jornada and a radio news programme. The threats reportedly began in September 2006 and increased in December that year following the publication of El Manto Púrpura. Martínez reported that she had not made an official complaint to the Mexican authorities because she feared that they would act against her. Besides receiving numerous death threats by telephone and email, Martínez reported having been followed by cars without licence plates on several occasions. No further news as of 30 June 2009; PEN is seeking an update. [International Women’s Day action – 8 March 2009].

*Veronica VILLALVAZO (f): independent journalist writing under the pseudonym of “Frida Guerrera”, was reportedly harassed by a group of youths in a street in Oaxaca on 29 January 2009. The young people pushed her over, tried to take her camera, and threatened her. Four days before the incident, Villavazo had reportedly been followed by two individuals, raising suspicions that she was being watched. She has been subject to harassment since 2007, due to her reporting on child sex abuse at a school in Oaxaca, which has gained national prominence due to local politicians’ alleged interference in the case. The journalist has also covered stories on her blog relating to the harassment of the newspaper Noticias, voz e imagen de Oaxaca, the actions of the Popular Assembly of the Peoples of Oaxaca and the disappearance of two indigenous women, all of which are thought to be POSSIBLE CAUSES FOR THE HARASSMENT.

NICARAGUA
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Harassed

Carlos Fernando CHAMORRO BARRIOS and Sofía MONTENEGRO (f): Chamarro is editor of the weekly newspaper Confidencial, a TV and radio presenter and the director of the Centre for Media Investigations (Centro de Investigación para la Comunicación, CINCO), a non governmental organization (NGO) which promotes media research, democracy and investigative journalism. Montenegro is a freelance journalist, author and director of another NGO, the Autonomous Women’s Movement (Movimiento Autónomo de Mujeres, MAM), which works for woman’s rights.
Investigation: Both Chamarro and Montenegro were threatened with a criminal investigation for alleged embezzlement and money laundering in late 2008. This was part of a wider investigation into 17 national NGOs, mainly dealing with communications and human rights, launched by the Ministry of the Interior in September 2008, which alleged that the organisations had been illegally funnelling funds from foreign governments to other NGOs. Chamarro was reportedly the first NGO director to be summonsed, on 2 October. Subsequently he was extensively questioned by prosecutors at the attorney general’s office, and on 18 October the CINCO premises were raided by police, who seized documents and computers. Montenegro was questioned on 7 and 8 October and the MAM offices were reportedly also searched. Both Chamorro and Montenegro were reportedly threatened with imprisonment if they did not respond to further summonses for questioning. The two NGOs were reportedly also being investigated for “promoting abortion”, in relation to the case of a nine-year-old rape victim known as “Rosita” who obtained an abortion in 2003 (a complete ban on abortion was imposed in Nicaragua in 2006).
Possible motive: It is thought that the investigation against Chamarro and Montenegro was politically motivated. Chamorro in particular is known as a critic of the Ortega administration and has conducted a number of investigations into official corruption. Chamorro and Montenegro are reportedly both former members of the Sandinista movement. They have reportedly also been the target of a smear campaign in the Nicaraguan media by close allies of President Ortega.
Background: Chamorro is the son of former president Violeta Chamorro and La Prensa editor Pedro Joaquín Chamorro, who was assassinated during the dictatorship of Anastasio Somoza. La Prensa had a contentious relationship with Ortega’s first administration between 1985 and 1990.
Update: On 22 January 2009, the Nicaraguan authorities announced that they would not pursue criminal charges against Chamorro’s centre or the other groups after finding no evidence of wrongdoing. However, the prosecutor referred the matter to the Ministry of Government for investigation of possible administrative irregularities.

PANAMA
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On trial

*Jean Marcel CHÉRY: director of the Panama City-based daily newspaper El Siglo, was sentenced to two years in prison and a US$1,000 fine on trespassing charges on 4 February 2009. The sentence reportedly stems from a series of lawsuits filed by a Supreme Court judge since 2001. In a March 2001 article, Chéry claimed that the judge - then minister of government and justice - had used public funds to build the road for his personal benefit. As a result, the judge sued Chéry for trespassing, criminal defamation and civil insult. According to Chéry, he and two other journalists were given permission by security guards to enter the judge’s property to inspect the construction of a nearby road. In 2004, Chéry and a colleague were each sentenced to a year in prison on defamation charges but were pardoned two months later. The civil lawsuit is still pending. Chéry reportedly intended to appeal the latest sentence for trespassing and was freed pending appeal.

PERU
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On trial: main case

Melissa Rocío PATIÑO HINOSTROZA (f): poet and university student, is a member of the ‘Círculo del sur’ (Southern Circle) poetry group in Lima and runs a poetry programme on radio and cultural activities with young people. Patiño (21) is on trial for terrorism, based on her alleged involvement with a leftwing political organization, Bolivarian Continental Coordinator (Coordinadora Continental Boliviariana – CCB), which the Peruvian authorities claim is linked to terrorist groups. She denies any political affiliations and to date no concrete evidence has been produced to back up the charges. Patiño was detained from 29 February to 8 May 2008, when she was released pending trial. She potentially faces 20 years in prison if convicted.
Arrest and detention: Patiño was arrested along with six othersin Tumbes, on the border with Ecuador, on 29 February 2008. The seven were returning by bus from Quito, where they had attended the second congress of the CCB from 24 to 28 February 2008, which was reportedly held with the knowledge and consent of the Ecuadorian authorities. They were subsequently charged with ‘Affiliation and Collaboration with Terrorism’, apparently on the basis of their attendance at the CCB meeting. Initially detained in Tumbes and the Counterterrorism Division (División Contra el Terrorismo – DINCOTE), on 15 March 2008 Patiño was transferred to Santa Monica maximum security prison in Chorrillos, Lima, where she was held until 8 May 2008.
Background: The government alleges that the Peruvian chapter of CCB has links with Peruvian Marxist rebel group Movimiento Revolucionario Túpac Amaru (MRTA) and the FARC guerrilla group in Colombia. It also reportedly accused CCB members of planning to sabotage the 2008 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation (APEC) meetings in Peru. Two of the six individuals who were detained along with Patiño are said to be former MRTA members; one has served a prison sentence for belonging to the MRTA and since his release has reportedly been organizing workshops and events at the university where Patiño studies (Universidad Mayor de San Marcos, Lima). However, Patiño’s presence in the bus carrying former MRTA members appears to have been circumstantial. She denies that she belongs to or has ever had any involvement in any political groups. She reportedly attended the CCB congress after a colleague at the radio station where she works passed the invitation on to her as he could not himself attend, and her main motivation for attending was the opportunity to travel to Ecuador.
Charges: According to Patiño’s lawyer, the accusations of terrorism against Patiño have been made on the basis of her alleged membership of the Peruvian chapter of the CCB, her attendance of the CCB congress in Ecuador and her participation in a march at the end of conference. During the march, she is said to have partially covered her face and shouted anti-imperialist and pro-socialism slogans, and to have been linked to graffiti criticizing Alan García, the Peruvian president, according to a 13 March 2008 document issued by the Public Prosecutor. None of these activities can be said to amount to terrorist activities.
Conditional release: On 8 May 2008, after almost two and a half months’ incarceration, Patiño was released on bail of 1,000 Soles (approx. $240) and allowed to return home. Her release is conditional and she remains on trial. Peru’s antiterrorist prosecutor, Julio Galindo, appealed against the decision to release Patiño, but this was rejected on 12 September 2008, meaning that Patiño will remain free on bail for the duration of her trial.
New information: As of July 2009, the legal case was still in the preliminary stages. No new evidence had been presented against Patiño. PEN monitoring. [RAN 20/08 and updates].

On trial

Mabel CÁCERES (f) and José MÁRQUEZ VILLALOBOS: director and editor respectively of the weekly newspaper El Búho, based in Arequipa, southern Peru, are on trial for allegedly defaming an academic. The charges were brought by the director of the Postgraduate School of San Agustín University in Arequipa (UNSA), who is also a lawyer. The director took exception to a report by El Búho that claimed that he had been granted a sabbatical in irregular circumstances and had then used the time to take on other posts, including one at the same university. As he sued for each issue of the newspaper that mentioned him, there are now three separate lawsuits pending against Cáceres. The paper has reportedly also been sued by other officials from the same university. On 21 November 2008, an arrest warrant was issued for Cáceres and Márquez after they failed to turn up for a court hearing. According to Cáceres, she had previously received summonses on two separate occasions; after the first she had asked to receive details of the charges before appearing and the second was delivered at the last minute. She was only informed of the arrest warrant five days after the event, on 26 November 2008.
Previous threats: On 14 May 2008, Cáceres received an anonymous letter threatening her with death at her home in Arequipa. The note reportedly said that Cáceres would be “destroyed” on the orders of “the party”. Cáceres believes that the threat was connected to allegations against Arequipa’s former regional president, also a member of the government Partido Aprista Peruano political party, published in the last two issues of El Búho. On 4 July 2007, El Búho journalist José Luis Márquez was threatened by two unidentified women at the newspaper’s headquarters, following his investigations into allegations of falsification of academic marks at the National Academy of Magistrates. No further information as of 30 June 2009; PEN is seeking up update.

*Raúl WIENER: head of the investigative section of the left-wing daily newspaper La Primera, was reportedly charged with “crimes against public peace” and “terrorism” in January 2009. The charges followed Wiener’s revelation that the same charges had been brought against 13 Peruvian leading leftwing politicians with alleged links to the Revolutionary Armed Forces of Colombia (Fuerzas Armadas Revolucionarias de Colombia - FARC) guerrilla group. On 11 January 2009, Wiener reportedly received a formal notification that summoned him for questioning on 14 January “as a defendant” in a case in which the charges were a “crime against public peace and terrorism.” The notification offered no further details. In November 2008, Wiener had revealed that 13 leading members of the Peruvian left were being investigated for these same charges after their names were found in the laptop of a FARC leader who was killed by the Colombian army in northern Ecuador in March 2008. Wiener also reported that the police had asked the judicial authorities to detain all 13 individuals. He reportedly feared that the authorities wanted him to reveal his sources. PEN is seeking further information.

Threatened

*Jaime ABANTO PADILLA: editor-in-chief of the newspaper Panorama Cajamarquino. On 7 April 2009 it was reported that Abanto had been receiving threatening phone calls, where the callers said they were tracking his movements and those of his family. The threats reportedly began on 21 March, after the newspaper denounced corruption by officials of the National Penitentiary Institute (INPE) at the Huacariz prison in Cajamarca, northern Peru.

Non custodial sentence

Herbert MUJICA ROJAS: Author and freelance journalist, was sued for ‘aggravated defamation’ (‘difamación agravada’) by Jaime Luis Gonzalo Daly Arbulú, general manager of Lima Airport Partners (LAP), which was awarded the concession to operate Lima’s Jorge Chávez International Airport following its privatisation in 2000. The case was brought on the basis of Mujica’s 2007 book entitled Ripping off Peru: how to steal airports without any problems (Estafa al Perú!: Como robarse aeropuertos y vivir sin problemas! – see http://www.voltairenet.org/IMG/pdf/ESTAFAALPERU.pdf), and his 23 March 2007 article entitled ‘Shameless LAP!’ (‘Los sinvergüenzas de LAP!’ – see http://hcmujica.blogspot.com/2007/04/los-sinverguenzasde- lap.html). Both publications reportedly implicate Daly in alleged irregularities in the state’s granting of the concession to LAP. The prosecution also asked for 100,000 Soles (approx. US$34,000) in civil reparation/ damages. The trial opened on 30 June 2008 at the 57th Penal Court in Lima and on 21 January 2009, Mujica was found guilty of defamation. However, he was not given a prison sentence or criminal conviction as was feared, and instead was ordered to pay civil reparations of 2,000 soles (approx. US$663).

UNITED STATES
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Judicial concern

*Sami Amin AL-ARIAN: Kuwaiti-born Palestinian academic, formerly a computer science professor at the University of South Florida. In addition to his academic publications, Al-Arian (51) has written and lectured extensively about the plight of Palestinian people in Israel and the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT) and has also written poetry while in detention. Al-Arian was imprisoned from February 2003 to September 2008 on international terrorism-related and contempt of court charges. His last prison sentence ended in April 2008, at which point he should have been deported, according to the conditions of his plea agreement. However he continued to be detained for refusing to testify against other individuals whom the US government alleges have been involved in terrorism. He was finally released on bail in September 2008. He is now under house arrest and faces a further prison sentence for contempt of court.
Details of arrest and trial: Al-Arian was arrested by the Federal Bureau of Investigations (FBI) on 20 February 2003 on charges of channeling funds to terrorist groups. He was not brought to trial until June 2005, on the grounds of the complexity of the case. In December 2005, the jury acquitted him on eight charges of 17 charges and remained deadlocked 10-2 in favour of acquittal on the other nine. The prosecution reportedly acknowledged during the trial that there was no evidence linking Al-Arian to any acts of violence in Israel or Palestine.
Plea bargain: Despite not having been found guilty of any of the many terrorism-related charges against him, in April 2004 Al-Arian pled guilty to a single count of conspiracy to provide non violent services to Palestinian Islamic Jihad, reportedly in order to avoid a lengthy re-trial. He was sentenced to 57 months in prison, 38 of which he had already served. As a part of his plea agreement, Al-Arian agreed to be deported on expiry of his sentence and was promised that he would not be charged with any other crimes. He maintains that there was also a verbal understanding that he would not be called on to testify against any others, apparently evidenced by the US government’s omission of the standard cooperation provisions from the plea agreement.
Further charges: Despite the alleged assurances contained in his plea bargain, Al-Arian was given a further prison sentence for civil contempt of court after refusing to testify against former associates. He was expected to be released on 11 April 2008, and that day was taken into the custody of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) in preparation for his deportation. However, Al-Arian was then subpoenaed to testify before another grand jury. As a result of his refusal to comply, he was charged with criminal contempt of court on 30 June 2008. In spite of a 10 July 2008 Federal court ruling that he should be released on bail, Al-Arian remained detained, reportedly on the grounds of his imminent deportation. On 8 August 2008, Al-Arian’s trial for criminal contempt was postponed until the Supreme Court addressed the appeal submitted by his defence on the lawfulness of the federal subpoena which led to the contempt charges.
Release: At the end of August 2008, Al-Arian’s lawyer filed a petition for habeas corpus on the grounds of ICE’s continued unlawful detention. As a result, on 2 September 2008, Al-Arian was released on bail after five and a half years in detention and placed under house arrest.
Ongoing trial: On 6 October 2008, the Supreme Court ruled that it would not address Al-Arian’s appeal regarding his plea agreement. It was reported that his defence lawyers would then pursue a second avenue to avert the trial, by arguing that the immunity order for the federal grand jury in which Al-Arian did not testify was invalid and the criminal contempt charges should therefore be dropped. On 21 December 2008, it was reported that the criminal contempt case may collapse because the federal prosecutor who brought the charges in Virginia altered the wording of the immunity order without notifying the judge who later signed the document. Al-Arian will remain under house arrest until his trial for contempt begins, or alternatively until the case is dismissed.
New information: In late March 2009, Al Arian’s lawyers again applied to have the criminal contempt charges against him dismissed. A hearing scheduled for 24 April was cancelled. The judge said that there was no need for further oral intervention as the issues had already been discussed and that she would issue a written opinion on the motion to dismiss the charges “soon”. No further news as of 30 June 2009. Trial continues; PEN monitoring.
PEN position: PEN has no position on the reasons for Al-Arian’s arrest and detention. However it is disturbed that Al-Arian was detained beyond his prison sentence, remains under house arrest and is facing further charges and imprisonment, despite the fact that he has agreed to be deported and that he is clearly unwilling to provide further testimony, and indeed according to his understanding has been exempted from doing so. The continuing prosecution and imprisonment of Al-Arian is giving rise to fears that he is being targeted for his opinions about the Palestinian cause.

Non custodial sentence

*Diane BUKOWSKI (f): freelance reporter for The Michigan Citizen, a “progressive community” weekly newspaper aimed at Detroit’s African- American communities. On May 1 2009, Bukowski (60) was found guilty of two counts of resisting, obstructing, opposing, and endangering two Michigan state troopers while covering a crime scene. She faced up to four years in prison or a fine or both. In the event, she received one year’s probation, a US$4,000 fine and 200 hours of community service. Bukowski is known for her articles critical of the Detroit Police Department and the office of the Wayne County prosecutor. She was arrested on election day in November 2008 while covering a crime scene involving a chase by Michigan State Police, which resulted in the deaths of a suspect and a pedestrian. Bukowski was arrested near the scene of the accident as she was taking pictures of one of the deceased. State troopers said she had crossed a police line, however she denies this. A TV video shows no evidence of her resisting officers. A Michigan state trooper seized Bukowski’s camera following her arrest and deleted two images. Fighting broke out after the crash and other individuals, including one who admitted crossing the police line and another who assaulted a state trooper, were also arrested but treated more leniently than Bukowski. The Wayne County Assistant Prosecutor reportedly stated that Bukoski’s prior reporting had nothing to do with the decision to prosecute.

Released

Emilio GUTIÉRREZ SOTO: former reporter for the regional newspaper El Diario del Noroeste based in Ascensión, Chihuahua state, Mexico, was arrested on 15 June 2008 and charged with entering the USA illegally. He was detained in El Paso, Texas, for seven months, before released on 29 January 2009. Gutiérrez, a Mexican national, reportedly fled to the USA with his 15-year-old son after receiving death threats believed to have come from members of the Mexican military whom he had accused of irregularities during anti narcotics operations in Chihuahua (see previous case list for details). Another El Diario journalist, José Armando Rodríguez Carreón was shot dead in Ciudad Juárez on 13 November 2008 (see Mexico above). On arrival in the USA on 15 June 2008, Gutiérrez and his son identified themselves to US Border Patrol agents and were placed in separate detention centres. The son was released into the care of family members in El Paso in August 2008 but Gutiérrez remained detained while his asylum claim was considered.
Release: Gutiérrez was finally released on 29 January 2009, having spent seven months in detention. He said he had been generally well treated although he suffered some racial discrimination at the hands of prison guards. He was reportedly given permission to remain in the USA for seven months while his asylum application is being considered. A hearing scheduled for 6 March was postponed, reportedly until June or July 2009. PEN monitoring.

URUGUAY
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Non custodial sentence

*Alvaro ALFONSO: journalist and author. On 21 May 2009, it was reported that Alfonso had been convicted of defaming a congressman in his 2008 book Secrets of the Communist Party of Uruguay. Citing “military sources”, Alfonso’s book alleges that during the Uruguayan military dictatorship (1973-1985), the current Communist Party leader and member of Congress for Montevideo collaborated with the military in identifying fellow party members while he was in prison. Alfonso did not receive a custodial sentence but the judge ordered that the conviction be added to his criminal record. Alfonso appealed the ruling and was awaiting the outcome.

VENEZUELA
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Killed

*Orel ZAMBRANO: editor of the political weekly ABC de la Semana and columnist for the regional daily Notitarde, in Valencia, Carabobo state, was shot dead on 16 January 2009. The motive of the crime was not known, although it was thought that Zambrano may have been targeted for a recent article on drugs trafficking. Zambrano (62), who was also vice-president of a radio station as well as a university professor and lawyer, was walking from his car to a film rental store in Valencia when he was approached by two men on a motorbike, one of whom shot him three times at close range. The assailants then fled. Zambrano died at the scene of a bullet wound to the head. He had reportedly covered several drug trafficking cases in recent weeks. One story in particular was on an influential business family in the region, the Makleds, three members of which were arrested in possession of 400 kilos of cocaine on 14 November 2008 and are now the subject of an investigation by the national prosecutor’s office. The Public Ministry (Ministerio Público) said that the judicial police had opened an investigation into Zambrano’s murder. The circumstances of Zambrano’s death have given rise to speculation that a paid assassin was responsible. His murder came just three days after the attempted murder of editor Rafael Finol (see below).
Investigation: On 16 February, former policeman Rafael Segundo Pérez Martínez was detained in Carabobo on suspicion of having ordered Zambrano’s murder. On 21 February, an arrest warrant was issued for two men who were accused of carrying out the crime, serving policeman David Yánez Inciarte and another man, Arístides José Carvajal Salgado. The suspects reportedly belong to a gang known as “Los Piloneros”, who were responsible for killing witnesses and others who assisted the ongoing investigation into the Makled family’s connection to drug trafficking. Zambrano had criticised both the Makleds and the gang in his reports prior to his death. On 12 March, the Public Prosecutor’s Office reportedly asked INTERPOL to capture Walid Makled, whom the Department of Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigations has accused of being the mastermind behind Zambrano’s murder, along with former policeman Rafael Segundo Pérez Martínez.

Imprisoned: investigation

Leocenis GARCÍA: editor of Sexto Poder magazine and journalist for the daily newspaper Reporte Diario de la Economía.
Date of arrest: 3 May 2008.
Alleged offence: Causing damage to property, carrying a gun without a permit and resisting arrest. It is feared that his arrest and imprisonment may be linked to his legitimate activities as a journalist.
Details of arrest: On 3 May 2008, García was arrested along with his assistant and his driver after being accused of causing damage to property at the offices of another newspaper, El Periódico, carrying a gun without a permit and resisting arrest. According to his lawyer, García had gone to El Periódico’s offices in order to collect payment for an advertisement for an airline (reportedly linked to one of El Periódico’s shareholders) that had been published in Sexto Poder, and to interview the vice-president of El Periódico about one of the newspaper’s owner’s alleged links to drug trafficking.
Concerns: García was reportedly beaten and given electric shocks while in the custody of the Carabobo police. There are fears that the case against him may in fact stem from his critical reporting. It is understood that over the year prior to his arrest, García had been investigating alleged corruption at the state-owned petroleum company Petróleos de Venezuela (PDVSA), and was being sued for defamation by an influential businessman who is close to PDVSA and whom García had denounced as having links to drugs trafficking. García denies ever possessing a gun and has stated that he believes his case is political and is being used to send a warning to Venezuelan journalists. His lawyer has alleged a series of irregularities in the legal case against García, including inconsistencies in police statements on how his arrest came about. As of late 2008, García was being held in solitary confinement with severely restricted privileges.
Place of detention: Initially held at the Intelligence and Prevention Services headquarters (Dirección General de los Servicios de Inteligencia y Prevención, DISIP) in Valencia, Carabobo, García was transferred to Tocuyito prison in Carabobo at the end of May 2008.
New information: As of July 2009, Garcia’s health was said to be good and he has not suffered further attacks, but he is not allowed any visits. A trial date was still to be set. A local press report in May indicated that García was to publish an auto- biography with the help of the weekly newspaper La Razón and other supporters.

On trial

Julio BALZA: columnist for the daily El Nuevo País, was sued for defamation and slander in March 2006 by Ramón Carrizales, then the Minister of Infrastructure. Having made critical remarks about Carrizales’ performance after the collapse of a bridge in his column “Arroz con Mango”, Balza was accused of having damaged the Minister’s reputation and infringing upon his “right to live with honour”. On 15 December 2006, the two-year-11-month sentence against Balza was upheld. The ruling also ordered civil reparations of nearly US$12,500. Balza’s defence said that they would appeal the sentence. The journalist reportedly could not be imprisoned until the sentence is reviewed and confirmed by another court.
Update: As of July 2009, the appeal was still pending. Balza remains free pending the outcome and continues to publish his weekly column.

Miguel SALAZAR: editor and columnist for the political weekly newspaper Las Verdades de Miguel. On 19 April 2007 it was reported that Salazar could face a prison sentence of two to four years and a US$320,000 fine for “aggravated defamation”. The charges stem from a 2005 law suit brought against Salazar and one of his journalists, Henry Crespo, by a local governor and two other politicians over a 2003 report on alleged corruption and human rights violations in Guárico state. Crespo received an 18-month suspended sentence in May 2006 and did not appeal. However Salazar challenged the court’s impartiality before the Caracas Supreme Court, which ordered Salazar to be temporarily detained for not having appeared for new preliminary hearings. The first hearing for the “aggravated defamation” suit was due to begin in Caracas on 18 April 2007.
New information: In July 2009, it was reported that two of the parties who brought the lawsuit against Salazar had agreed to settle. The case brought by the third politician was still pending, although it was thought likely that this would also soon be settled in Salazar’s favour. The journalist was unable to leave Venezuela for four years as a result of the lawsuits and also had to report to the court on weekly basis, but these restrictions have now been lifted.

Brief detention

*Álvaro VARGAS LLOSA and Mario VARGAS LLOSA: both authors (and son and father respectively), were briefly detained when they arrived in Venezuela to take part in an international forum in May 2009. On 25 May 2009, Álvaro Vargas Llosa was detained for more than two hours by customs officials at Caracas airport while they went through his luggage and his identity documents. Two days later his father Mario Vargas Llosa was detained in similar circumstances. The pair had traveled to Venezuela to attend a meeting entitled “The Latin American challenge: freedom, democracy, property and the fight against poverty”, organised by the Centro de Divulgación del Conocimiento Económico (CEDICE), a think tank that opposes the government of President Hugo Chávez. The customs officials told Messrs Vargas Llosa that they could enter the country, but warned them not to make any statements about Venezuela’s political situation as they were only visitors. A few days before the event, representatives of Venezuela’s United Socialist Party (PSUV) reportedly stated that they would support measures such as the expulsion of Mario Vargas Llosa if he discredited the country with his statements. Mario Vargas Llosa is known as a voracious critic of Chávez. It is understood that there are no laws in Venezuela that limit foreigners’ freedom of expression.

Attacked

*Rafael FINOL: political editor for the daily newspaper El Regional, was shot at outside the newspaper’s offices in Acarigua, Portuguesa state, on 13 January 2009. Finol, who is reportedly in his early 60s, was rushed to hospital with a severe bullet wound to the head but reportedly made a good recovery. He believed that the attack was in reprisal for the newspaper’s political reporting, and specifically its support of President Chávez. The editor had met the President for an interview a few days before the attack. He said he had not received any previous threats. He and his family were reportedly provided with police protection and local authorities were said to be investigating the attack.
New information: According to Finol, a young man, allegedly a serial murderer, was arrested and reportedly confessed to carrying out the attack but was released on bail and was killed in a commando operation on 30 April. Finol now believes that the attack was related to his reporting on corruption. He says that around the time of the attack, he was also dismissed from two posts he held, as a municipal councillor and as a teacher in an official institution. The police protection he received lasted only a few days and he fears further attacks.

Harassed

*Adriana CICCALIONE (f): reporter for the newspaper El Impulso, along with a photographer from the same publication, was threatened by an unidentified individual when attempting to report on the death of a young man near Barquisimeto on 31 January 2009. The mean wanted to prevent them from reporting on the story. The journalists returned to their car as a safety precaution but the man followed them and continued to threaten them. The news item on the death was published without a byline in order to avoid reprisals. According to local residents the man who threatened them is a relative of the deceased and works for the Department for Scientific, Penal and Criminal Investigations (Cuerpo de Investigaciones Científicas Penales y Criminalísticas) but this information could not be corroborated.

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