CUBA

CUBA WHEREAS there is no press freedom or freedom of expression in Cuba and the Cuban government continues a harsh campaign of harassment and censorship against independent journalists three journalists are serving prison terms: Bernado Arevalo Padron, six years in Ariza, Cienfuegos; Lorenzo Paez Nunez, 18 months in Cinco y Medio, Pinar del Rio; Juan Carlos Recio Martinez, one year in Cooperativa de Camajuani, Villa Clara two correspondents have trials pending: Mario Viera, who faces a libel complaint and Manuel Antonio Castellanos, accused of showing contempt for President Fidel Castro State Security is practicing a new way to put pressure on independent journalists through pressuring landlords to not renew their leases or simply evict them without any justification attacks continue against relatives of independent journalists, forcing them to flee the country the government authorized the reopening of an Associated Press bureau, which with the existence of CNN brings to two the number of U.S. news organizations allowed to operate in the country since the 1969 expulsion of all U.S. news media and journalists from the country THE IAPA GENERAL ASSEMBLY RESOLVES to continue calling on the international community to protest in all international forums and request the government of Cuba cease its campaign of harassment, persecution and aggression of independent journalists to request the government to reconsider the convictions of Bernando Arevalo Padron, Lorenzo Paez Nunez and Juan Carlos Recio Martinez and that it decriminalize any legal dispositions that amount to any form of censorship, including the offenses of spreading of "enemy propaganda" or "false information" to call upon the government to not utilize the opening of bureaus of U.S. news organizations as a way to selectively discriminate against other news agencies and media organizations already authorized by the U.S. government to negotiate their presence in Cuba.