Exiled Cuban wins journalism award

[Bacchus39]

Source: AP

MADRID, Spain - Cuban dissident writer Raul Rivero has won a prestigious Spanish journalism award for his reporting on his native country, where he spent two years in jail on charges of trying to undermine President Fidel Castro's government.


Rivero, who is 62 and moved to Madrid in 2005 after being released from prison, won one of several Ortega y Gasset Prizes that were announced Wednesday. The awards, now in their 24th year, are given by Spain's top-selling newspaper, El Pais.

The jury voted unanimously to give Rivero the prize for journalism in recognition of his "tenacious and committed battle for journalistic freedom" in Cuba.


http://portal.unesco.org/en/ev.php-URL_ID=18716&URL_DO=DO_TOPIC&URL_SECTION=201.html
Mr Rivero was given a 20-year prison sentence in April 2003 and the 25 other journalists arrested alongside him were handed jail terms of 14 to 27 years. They were tried under Article 91 of the Penal code, which imposes lengthy prison sentences or death for undermining “the independence or territorial integrity of the State.” The journalists’ arrest last March was part of a crackdown in which, beside the journalists, more than 50 dissidents were jailed.





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