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Attacked
April 26
Bureau of Independent Press of Cuba (BPIC), ATTACKED, HARASSED
Police raided the BPIC headquarters in Havana, confiscating BPIC's files, correspondence, magazines, typewriters, a computer, and pens and pencils. The office was set up in the home of Julio Restano Suárez, BPIC director Yndamiro Restano's father. Yndamiro Restano lives in Miami. CPJ wrote a letter to the Cuban government denouncing the raid. On May 2, State Security agents detained Julio Suárez for about 10 hours at Villa Marista, Cuban State Security's headquarters. Police ordered Julio Suárez to stop allowing his home to be used as BPIC's office, and told him that BPIC had to cease its work immediately. In response, BPIC closed down the office; BPIC members now operate from their respective homes.
June 12
Rodrigo Alonso, Telemundo, ATTACKED
Alonso, a reporter for the Miami-based Telemundo network, was abducted by four men outside his hotel in the Vedado section of Havana. While the men drove Alonso around Havana in their car for approximately four hours, his hotel room was burglarized.
The incident began when Alonso received a phone call in his room at the Cohiba Hotel and was told that he had a visitor. When he went outside to meet the supposed visitor, he was approached by two men who asked him if he was Rodrigo Alonso. When he said yes, they pushed him into the car, and two other men entered the vehicle, blocking his exit. During the four-hour drive, he was asked several times what he was doing in Cuba. One of the men hit Alonso on the back of his head and poked his right eye several times with a sharp object. Alonso had traveled to Cuba on June 10 with two other representatives of Telemundo to research material and conduct interviews for a program about the life of the revolutionary leader Ernesto Ché Guevara. CPJ urged the Cuban government to investigate Alonso's abduction and the burglary.
For more information contact americasweb@cpj.org