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NEWS
Posted on Wed, Oct. 15, 2003
FREEDOM OF EXPRESSION
Press group indicts Cuba, Venezuela
CHICAGO - (AP) -- Freedom of
expression and freedom of the press are violated, or at least
threatened, throughout the Western Hemisphere, an organization of
newspaper publishers said Tuesday. The Inter-American Press Association
concluded a five-day meeting in Chicago saying the situation is the
worst in Cuba and Venezuela.
The Miami-based umbrella group of nearly all newspapers in the Americas
said Cuba is the country where freedom of the press ``is violated most
systematically and completely.''
''Twenty-eight independent journalist are serving prison sentences
ranging from 14 to 27 years in subhuman conditions, far from their
families, with no medical attention and no respect for their other basic
human rights,'' the IAPA concluded in a report.
Venezuela was also mentioned as a concern for harassment of Venezuelan
journalist by sympathizers of President Hugo Chávez.
A ''special distinction'' of the IAPA's award went to the 28 Cuban
journalists.
Receiving the award on their behalf, Humberto Castelló, executive editor
of El Nuevo Herald of Miami, asked Jack Fuller, the Chicago Tribune
publisher IAPA president, ``not to allow Venezuela to become a new Cuba
with the press.''
The IAPA also said national security is being used as a pretext to clamp
down on the media in the United States.
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