These Cuban kids are alright

Reporters Without Borders (RSF) today condemned the arrest last week of independent Cuban journalist Ahmed Rodríguez Albacia.

Rodríguez was arrested Friday, but no formal charges have been filed — which has become a familiar pattern in the government's war on independent journalism in Cuba.

“Rodríguez’s detention raises the possibility of new arrests without trial like those of Oscar Mario González Pérez and Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez in July 2005 and Armando Betancourt in May 2006,” the press freedom organization said in a statement. “Rodríguez and his family have been the target of constant harassment in recent weeks and we call for his immediate release."

Another bad habit repeated by the communists in the arrest of Rodríguez is the targeting of journalists working for the Jóvenes sin Censura (Youth Without Censorship) news agency.

"Jóvenes sin Censura has been the target of constant harassment since its creation by a group of young journalists in September 2005," RSF stated. "Two state security officials ordered the head of the agency, Liannis Meriño Aguilera, 21, to put a stop to her activities on 29 December in the eastern city of Holguín."

Meriño has responded by continuing to report and write stories that tell what's really happening in Cuba, especially in the prisons in the eastern part of the nation.

All independent journalists are considered enemies of the revolution, because the stories they write show that the dictators have no clothes.

But it is not surprising that Jóvenes sin Censura, as representative of yet another generation sure to be disenchanted with the revoution, is coming under special scrutiny.

Not only do they represent a generation of Cubans for whom the revolution is a joke.

They also show that despite the repression of the free press in Cuba — including the jailing of Ahmed Rodríguez and at least 27 other journalists — there are still Cubans, Cubans of that young generation, willing to pick up pen and notebook to tell the real stories of the real Cuba.

That makes them Castro's enemies.

And that makes them my heroes.

To read all of RSF's statement, go here.