Horror of horrors! Two Scandinavians in Cuba treated as Cubans by Castro police! By Carlos Eire, Babalu Blog March 12, 2015
Jaana Kanninen, Jessica Stolzmann and Oscar Romero
From Martinoticias.com
Journalists Jaana Kanninen, from Finland and Jessica Stolzmann, from Sweden, were arrested last month in Havana, on February 3rd, as they filmed a public anti-Castro-regime demonstration.
Both of them have published an account of their harrowing experience on a Finnish website: www.yle.fi
These two journalists were working for National Finnish Radio and Television (YLE), and they were fully accredited by the Castro regime's Centro de Prensa Internacional (International Press Center), which is a branch of the Ministry of Foreign Relations..
Kanninen and Stolzmann were filming simple street scenes in central Havana with a Cuban cameraman named Oscar Romero, when, suddenly, they ran into a crowd of protesters at the intersection of San Rafael and Galeano streets, in the heart of what used to be Havana's shopping district. The leaders of this demonstration are identified as Sonia de la Caridad González Mejías and Melkis Faure Hechavarría, both from the Cuban Patriotic Union (Unión Patriótica de Cuba, UNPACU).
These demonstrators were shouting: “Down with the dictatorship, down with hunger! Long live the Cuban Patriotic Union! We say: no more hunger!" The protesters were being accosted by police in civilian clothing and a mob shouting counter-slogans in favor of the so-called Revolution.
CLICK ON THE PICTURE BELOW TO SEE THE FINNISH TV REPORT OF THE DEMONSTRATION IN HAVANA
Sonia de la Caridad González Mejías and Melkis Faure Hechavarría, both from the Cuban Patriotic Union (Unión Patriótica de Cuba, UNPACU).
As they were filming, the demonstrators began to be rounded up by police and those who could get away dispersed quickly. Those who could not -- including the journalists -- were rounded up and taken to police stations.
The two Scandinavians were subjected to the same rough treatment as the Cuban protesters, even though they had documents to prove that they had official permission to film in Havana.
Although they were not abused physically, the Scandinavians were rudely jostled and denied any opportunity to call anyone who might rescue them from the indignity of being treated as Cubans, not even the Castro-regime officials who had given them permission to film in Havana. After a few hours, suddenly the police changed their behavior, extended an apology and released them.
Jaana Kannine summed up her experience as follows: "The only conclusion I can reach is that they wanted to scare us, to influence the content of our work, perhaps to silence us and to keep us from reporting what we had just seen."
Duh.
Welcome to Castrogonia, Scandinavians. Welcome to the world as experienced by Cubans.
Read more HERE, in the Castellano dialect, HERE in Finnish and HERE in Swedish.
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