The surest way to guage the credibility of a story by a Cuban independent journalist, is to watch how the dictatorship responds. By that measure, an interview Alvaro Yero Felipe did earlier this month with the daughter of a man killed in the 1976 mid-air bombing of a Cuban airliner, was right on the money.
Journalists with the recently formed Free Association Agency, of which the 21-year-old Yero is a member, report that a State Security official Oct. 10 summoned him to a local police station and notified him that a criminal case against him had been filed. The officer told Yero he would not hesitate to send him to prison for his interview earlier this month with Rosa Serrano Valdés, the daughter of Lázaro Serrano Acosta, a flight attendant killed in the bombing.
Apparently, the interview was considered offensive because in it, Rosa Serrano claims the dictatorship has fallen short of the assistance it promised when her father was killed.
"The government has always said that the families of the martyrs of Barbados are well cared for in Cuba, and this is a lie," Serrano said.
As we know, it is one of too many to count.
Yero's colleagues called on international press groups and others to monitor whatever happens to the journalist.
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