Distributed by The Cuba Free Press Project.

Havana, August 21, 1997, Cuba Press

Ramon Alberto Cruz Lima Under Pressure. By Ana Luisa Lopez Baeza, CubaPress.

The director of news agency Agencia Patria, Ramon Alberto Cruz Lima, was released at approximately 3 a.m. this Wednesday.

Cruz Lima, who had been detained on Monday, spent nearly 72 hours at the State Security office in Ciego de Avila, without receiving any food, sleeping on an iron cot, and in a cell in which the heat became unbearable.

The journalist was subjected to interrogation sessions every two hours, and he also was coerced to agree to sign a document resigning to his job as an independent journalist.

Cuba Press was not able to learn under which conditions the political police freed Cruz Lima, because the phone conversation with Juan Carlos Leiva from Ciego de Avila was cut off three times and was permanently interrupted later.

Reported from Havana by Ana Luisa Lopez Baeza, CubaPress.