Cuba Expels 2 Reporters for ‘Unfriendly’ Interview

Cuba expelled the Havana correspondents of Reuters and Agence France Presse today after telling them that publication of an interview with a human rights activist was considered an “unfriendly act.”

Robert Powell of Reuters and Noel Lorthiois of AFP were summoned by the Foreign Ministry Wednesday after filing an interview with Elizardo Sanchez, a vice president in the Cuban Committee for Human rights.

Powell and Lorthiois were then accompanied to their homes by immigration officers, allowed to pack bags and taken to Jose Marti International Airport to await a departing plane.

Officials told the two correspondents earlier this week that publishing Sanchez’s statements would be “officially interpreted by the Cuban government as an unfriendly act.”

‘Local Terrorists’

Sanchez told the journalists the government had arrested two members of the human rights group last month. Cuban officials confirmed the move but described the arrested men as “local terrorists.”

The officials at the press department in the Foreign Ministry told the correspondents that the government did not recognize the human rights group as a legal organization.

Sanchez had told the reporters that the committee had sent an appeal to seven Western nations through the Canadian Embassy asking for help to find a “humane solution” in the case of Ricardo Bofill, a dissident who sought refuge in the French Embassy after the arrest of his two colleagues.