This is the Moroccan journalist Amine Ayoub, who is also pro-Israeli activist.
Miami, United States. – Amine Ayoub, a Moroccan journalist and fellow of the Think Tank Forum of the Middle East, denounced that Cuban authorities interrogated him, retained his phone and kept him in a waiting room for 32 hours, before preventing him from boarding a flight to Bahamas and order to return to Morocco, according to the report of the Israeli media YnetNews.
According to Ayoub, his trip had a family target – paying off with his brother who lives in Houston, Texas, at an intermediate point, Bahamas – and chose to fly via Cuba by closeness. “I thought that with all his speeches about peace and all the good things they say about themselves, it would be fine,” he said. “I didn’t know that Cuba was going to hate me and to treat me like this,” he said, quoted by YnetNews.
Upon arrival in Havana, he assures that he underwent an interrogation of four to five hours for the numerous seals of Israel in his passport. “When I terrified, they treated me like a terrorist,” he said. “They had me there as a criminal.” According to his story, Cuban officials asked him to see his reservations, they took his phone and held him “for a couple of hours.” “I don’t know what they did with him. I probably need to change phone. I do a lot of my work on that phone,” he added.
Although they finally allowed him to enter Cuba for the three days he had planned, when he arrived at the airport to continue to Bahamas – with his ticket and a Visa Bahamesa in force, he said – “a civilian appeared” and took his passport. “No, you can’t go to Bahamas,” they communicated without explanations. “They don’t even explain. It’s as if I were a criminal,” he said.
Ayoub said that the Cuban authorities told him that “the Bahameños did not want him,” but they did not show him any documentation. Instead of allowing him to travel to Nassau, he was ordered to return to Morocco immediately and placed him in a room with metal chairs for “more than 30 hours”, an experience he summed up with the phrase: “Without food, without water.” He argued that even to go to the bathroom he was followed by an agent. “I still have physical pain for having slept in that place for 32 hours,” he said. “There are psychological effects too. I’m still disturbed because I don’t know what those guys wanted. They could probably hurt me.”
The journalist assured that the detention did not record formal. “They have these techniques not to leave any record of what they did to me,” he said. The episode concluded, according to its version, when the Chief of the Police of the “José Martí” International Airport, of Havana, accompanied by several agents, escorted it to the plane and remained on board until it took a seat.
Ayoub attributed what happened to his Proisraelí activism. “That is what he really explains, with all those questions they asked me and the way they treated me,” he said. “It is a dangerous time for Proisraelí work, for Proisraeli activists,” he warned. He also said entry restrictions in “many countries, including Türkiye.”
The incident prevented him from meeting with his brother and caused economic losses, according to his testimony. YnetNews It does not record in the report a version of Cuban authorities or bahames about what happened.
