Cuba Asked To Free Three Journalists

An international press watchdog group is demanding that the Cuban government release three journalists still held from a wave of roundups after an international youth festival.

Cuba’s Communist authorities arrested or detained about 10 Cuban journalists in an effort to maintain only official coverage of the festival held in late July and early August, Reporters Without Borders said.

In a letter Wednesday to Cuban leader Fidel Castro, the Paris-based group said it “strongly fears that the arrests are directly linked to independent journalistic activity” and demanded the reporters be “immediately released.”

State security agents arrested Ramon Alberto Cruz Lima, director of the independent press agency Patria, on Monday at his home in Ciego de Avila, near the central city of Santa Clara, the press group said.