The contributor to La Hora de Cuba and 14ymedio Ricardo Fernández Izaguirre (born Camagüey, 1983), who is also a prominent Christian activist, met all the necessary conditions to raise the Government’s anger; and so it happened in 2019.
In July, he was arrested in Havana when he left the headquarters of the Ladies in White when he was going to the bus station to return to his province of residence. The police kept him nine days under arrest and finally released him with a warning letter for an allegedly illegal stay in the capital that Fernández could prove was not, because he had travel tickets to Pinar del Río.
In November, he was arrested again, this time for 29 hours, during which he was interrogated on numerous occasions by State Security agents who warned him that this was “a lesson” while the legal process was being settled by an investigation. The police intend to take him to court for “usurpation of legal capacity” – a term they apply to individuals whom they consider to be exercising a profession without the legal right to do so. In Fernández’s case the government claims that he cannot exercise journalism; an accusation that derives from the interrogations of several people interviewed by the reporter for an article he wrote about the town of Nuevitas.
See also: 14ymedio’s 14 Faces of 2019
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