Cuban independent journalist Luis Esteban Espinosa Echemendía, 20, was arrested and detained for about two hours on Wednesday, according to a story by journalist Tania Maceda Guerra posted at Payo Libre.

Espinosa, a correspondent with the Youth Without Censorship news agency, was arrested about 10 a.m. in Ciego de Ávila while accompanying Rodolfo Sospedra, who was collecting signatures on a petition calling for a "single currency" in Cuba, Maceda reports.

While being questioned, an officer several times punched Espinosa in the stomach and ribs. The officer threatened a further assault if Espinosa continued to insist he be allowed to notify family members that he had been arrested, according to Maceda's source, Juan Carlos González Leiva, the president of the anti-government Cuban Foundation for Human Rights.

González said a police major told Espinosa, who also is the national press secretary for the Cuban Foundation for Human Rights, that if he did not quit working as a journalist, he would be imprisoned, like fellow journalists Pedro Argüelles Morán and Pablo Pacheco Ávila.

Espinosa could do much worse than to emulate those two brave journalists and prisoners of conscience.


For a profile of one of Espinosa's colleagues in the Cuban independent media, read the Miami New Times.