On June 11, Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez, an independent journalist and director of Centro de Información Hablemos Press (Hablemos Press), was assaulted on the sidewalk in Havana around 10:40AM by an unidentified individual, according to Diario de Cuba. Guerra Pérez reported that the attack was sudden and unprovoked and that he did not respond to the assault. Another journalist, Osmel Almaguer, was with him at the time, but was not injured. Following the attack, his wife Magaly Norvis Otero Suárez, also a journalist with Hablemos Press and a member of the leading human rights group Las Damas de Blanco (The Ladies in White), said that Guerra Pérez required medical care for a broken nose, various cuts on his face, and a prick to his abdomen with an unknown object.

The attack on Guerra Pérez is the most recent incident in an ongoing campaign of threats and harassment carried out against Hablemos Press, detailed in a news article published by the organization.

The World Movement for Democracy condemns the physical attack against Roberto de Jesús Guerra Pérez, as well as the constant detentions and threats against independent journalists in Cuba. We call on the Cuban government to immediately cease its campaign of intimidation and violence against them, and to respect the rights of their citizens to free expression and free press. The World Movement encourages the international community to speak out against the injustice and oppression that the Cuban government wages against its own citizens.

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