JESÚS JOEL DÍAZ HERNÁNDEZ

November 22, 1999
		Cuban journalist Jesús Joel Díaz Hernández, 25, winner of a 1999 International Press Freedom Award, is serving a four-year prison term. He was arrested Jan. 18, 1999, convicted the next day of "dangerousness" and sentenced to a four-year prison term. His crime was starting an independent news agency, the Cooperativa Avilena de Periodistas Independientes, or CAPI.

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"The government thinks that you are dangerous and that is enough," said Dr. José Alberto Hernández, president of CubaNet, a nonpartisan, nonprofit organization based in Coral Gables, Fla., which works to foster a free press in Cuba. CubaNet publishes reports from Cuba's independent journalists on its Web site. Díaz Hernández' supporters said he was targeted because of his journalistic activities and previous human rights campaigns, according to a CubaNet report. Yet not all independent journalists are arrested or exiled. "Decisions are arbitrary," Hernández said. "Often it is the idiosyncrasies of the locale where the person is. On top of that, he is a young man who was known to be a strong-willed individual." Díaz Hernández was held in solitary confinement for eight months and waged a hunger strikes in January and again in July. He continues to write about the jail conditions, even though guards have confiscated his stories and threatened him with up to 20 more years of jail, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists. Díaz Hernández and his family are "very happy" about the Press Freedom Award, said Marylene Smeets, Americas program coordinator for the Committee to Protect Journalists. "This award is also a tribute to all Cuban journalists who carry out their work against such daunting repression," Smeets said.