The Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) has condemned the Cuban government for the arrest of and threats made to independent newsman Carlos Serpa Maceira. IAPA has also reminded Cuba to observe tolerance of press freedom and called for 25 journalists still imprisoned to be freed.

In a telephone call to the IAPA, Serpa Maceira of the Sindical Press news agency and Cuba correspondent of the Sweden-based magazine, Miscel neas de Cuba, said he was arrested at 5 a.m. at a house in the Old Havana district of the Cuban capital by two state security agents and a national police officer who took him to a police station, where he was charged with engaging in provocative and mercenary acts under the guidance of the United States interests section in Cuba.

Call a halt

The chairman of the IAPA's Committee on Freedom of the Press and Information, Gonzalo Marroquin, declared: "It is about time that the government of Cuba call a halt to its reactionary methods and put into practice tolerance of freedom of the press and free speech. One of the first steps should be the release of the 25 independent journalists that remain in prison for exercising their right to express an opinion."

Serpa Maceira reported that he was ordered by officials to stop working as a journalist and warned that he would be sent to the Island of Youth, where he was born, because he lacked permission to live in the Cuban capital.

He also sent an email reporting on what had happened to him and declaring he planned to continue working as a journalist.

"They issued me with an official warning, which I refused to sign," he said. "In it, they accuse me of covering an aborted demonstration in Havana on June 4 for the 19th anniversary of China's Tiananmen Square incidents, claiming my act was a counter-revolutionary provocation."

He added that the arrest was due to his having broadcast his report live on Miami-based Radio Marti.