From Herald Staff and Wire Reports
The Cuban government has banned independent journalist Raul Rivero
from
traveling to New York to receive a prestigious journalism award
from Columbia
University next week.
``This action by Cuba is a vivid reminder of the sorts of obstacles
that journalists
around the world encounter in the pursuit of their profession,
said Tom Goldstein,
dean of Columbia's Journalism School.
Rivero told The Herald in a telephone interview from Havana that
officials at Cuba's
Interior Ministry, in charge of domestic security, told him Thursday
his request for
permission to travel abroad had been denied.
Columbia awarded Rivero a Maria Moors Cabot special citation for
his reporting
from Cuba in the face of arrests and harassments. Cuba denied
him permission to
travel abroad for other journalism ceremonies in 1996, 1997 and
1998.
Rivero said his daughter Cristina, who lives in Miami, would represent
him at the
award dinner Wednesday at Columbia's Lowe Library.
The Cabot prizes, awarded annually since 1939 for excellence in
reporting about
Latin America, went this year to Jorge Zepeda Patterson of the
Guadalajara,
Mexico, newspaper Publico; Linda Robinson of U.S. News and World
Report; and
Juan O. Tamayo of The Miami Herald.
Special citations were awarded to Rivero and James McClatchey,
publisher of
McClatchey newspapers.
Copyright 1999 Miami Herald