Politics

Spain says won’t give up until Cuba returns permits to Efe journalists

Brussels, Nov 15 (EFE).- Spain said Monday it would not stop pressuring Cuba until authorities reinstated the press credentials of all five members of the Efe news agency bureau in Havana.

Cuban authorities on Saturday revoked the credentials of three reporters, a photographer and a videographer employed by the Spanish agency.

On Sunday, authorities reinstated two out of the five press credentials.

“We are not going to stop asking for the return of all credentials,” Spain’s foreign minister Jose Albares told reporters in Brussels.

He said the situation was “unacceptable” and that Spain was in direct contact with the Cuban government and the Cuban embassy in Madrid.

“It does not seem acceptable to us that credentials should be withdrawn without any reason. Freedom of the press in any country in the world is vital,” Albares said.

Cuban officials have not offered a reason for the decision or clarified whether the measure was temporary or permanent.

The move came six weeks after the Cuban Press Center withdrew accreditation from the Efe bureau chief in Havana and days ahead of an unsanctioned pro-democracy protest Monday.

Yunior Garcia Aguilera, one of the leaders of the anti-government rally, said on Sunday the government blocked him from leaving his house to go on the march.

The leading Cuban communist party has banned the protests and participants risk being jailed.

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