(Havana) The Cuban authorities on Saturday withdrew the accreditations of five journalists from the Spanish news agency Efe working in Havana, we learned from the editor, on the eve of two days of action by the opposition.
“They summoned us urgently” and “asked to return our accreditations,” Atahualpa Amerise, chief editor of the office which has three editors, a photographer and a videographer, told AFP.
“When we asked them the reasons, they invoked the regulations on the foreign press”, he added, without specifying the exact reason for this decision which forbids them to practice journalism on the island.
“We asked if it was temporary or permanent, they told us that for the moment they were not going to answer us”, he also indicated, estimating that it is the first time that a whole team of a foreign media is thus sanctioned in Cuba.
The measure comes on the eve of a solo parade planned by the opponent Yunior Garcia, who has planned to march Sunday, a rose in hand, on an avenue in Havana, even if he has already been warned by the police that he would then be arrested.
On Monday, the opposition called for a demonstration, also banned by the communist authorities, to demand the release of political prisoners, four months after the historic demonstrations of July 11.
These demonstrations, with cries of “We are hungry” and “Freedom”, ended in one death, dozens of wounded and 1,270 people arrested, 658 of whom remain in detention, according to the NGO Cubalex.
The government believes this is an attempt to destabilize and has accused the organizers of being funded by the United States for this purpose.