Yailén Insúa Alarcón, former director of the Cuban Television Information System and of the magazine Buenos Días, has been stranded at the Bogotá airport since last Saturday, February 5, and has asked the Colombian government for asylum because, she alleges, “if she returns to Cuba, her life is in danger.”
The journalist told from the El Dorado airport, where she is with her husband, that she left Cuba for Colombia with Nicaragua as her final destination. Upon her arrival in Bogotá, however, she was told that she was wanted in Havana for being regulated, a provision of the Ministry of the Interior that prohibits leaving the national territory. According to his thesis, the Immigration officials on the Island must not have been aware of his status and allowed him to board the plane.
“I asked the Colombian government for asylum, because I am not going to return to Cuba because my life is in danger”
However, already in Bogotá, the Colombian authorities inform her that Nicaragua did not authorize her entry or that of her husband, Boris Luis Ramos Salgado, a member of the Yoruba Cultural Society of Cuba. According to what Insúa Alarcón told Caracol TV, he is diabetic and is in a delicate state of health.
“I asked the Colombian government for asylum, because I am not going to return to Cuba because my life is in danger,” he insisted.
Yailen Insua Alarcón told Univisión 23 that the Cuban government had threatened her with six months in prison since she showed images of Celia Cruz on television.
“I am leaving Cuba because I was in a situation that I could no longer resolve. Since 2017, I cannot work in what I studied, in journalism, I do extra work because Security always goes because of the difference in thinking that I have with the system that there is in my country,” he said.
Last year, the journalist collaborated with Radio Cadena Habana, the music station of the channel of the Cuban Institute of Radio and Television (ICRT).
Colombian television contacted Avianca, the airline with which they were going to cover the journey, to find out the reasons why the couple was prevented from boarding the plane. “The clients arrived from Cuba without complying with the necessary documentation to be shipped and make the Bogotá-Nicaragua route (specifically a shipment guarantee from the Ministry of Health of the destination country),” the company responded.
“These travelers have not started a transport contract with Avianca. The airline is attentive to resolving their situation,” he added.
The journalist affirms that the indication given to her is that one of the PCRs was invalid, but she questions this reason because they were the same ones with which they left the Island. “I don’t understand how they let me leave on one side and on the other.” No. The problem is that the Nicaraguan government did not allow me access,” he claims.
. “I don’t understand how they let me out on one side and not on the other. The problem is that the Nicaraguan government did not allow me access”
The Government of Daniel Ortega has agreed with Havana on free entry for Cubans, but also on the application of restrictive measures for opponents of the island’s regime.
The precedent most similar to that of Insúa Alarcón is Managua’s decision to prevent the entry of independent journalists Esteban Rodríguez and Héctor Luis Cocho last January when they were trying to get to Nicaragua from El Salvador, country to which they asked for a refuge that was granted, although a few days later they left it to continue their trip.
According to EcuRed, which collects his professional career until 2015, Insúa Alarcón worked in the Ministry of the Revolutionary Armed Forces. She was a delegate at the XVI World Festival of Youth and Students in Venezuela and at the VII National Congress of the University Student Federation (FEU).
In addition, she was a member of the Primary Committee of the Communist Party (PCC) in the Union of Cuban Television Workers and a deputy in the National Assembly of People’s Power during the VII Legislature (2008-2013).
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