Pro-Israeli Moroccan Journalist Detained and Expelled from Cuba in Shocking Airport Ordeal
While he was planning to join his brother in the Bahamas, a pro-Israeli Moroccan journalist, a member of the Middle East Forum and known for his public defense of Israel, was arrested and expelled from Cuba due to his activism.
The Moroccan journalist Amine Ayoub was unable to meet his brother who lives in Houston, as he had wished. His trip turned into a ordeal. Leaving Morocco via France for Havana, he was arrested in Cuba. Upon arrival, the Cuban authorities arrested him at the airport and detained him for hours. They then questioned him about the many Israeli stamps in his passport. "I thought with all their talk of peace and all the good things they say about themselves, it would be fine. I didn’t know Cuba was going to hate me and treat me like that," Ayoub said in a video interview with Ynet News in Israel. He was keen to point out that his phone was confiscated without explanation for several hours.
The Moroccan journalist added: "They treated me like a terrorist... they held me like a criminal." After these hours of detention, he was allowed to enter Cuba for three days. But he was arrested again at the airport as he was trying to board a flight to the Bahamas. A civilian took his passport and he was told he could not leave. "The Bahamians don’t want you [...] No, you can’t go to the Bahamas," Ayoub recounted, adding that he received no official document or explanation. He was taken to a cell with metal chairs, "without food or water," where he spent 32 hours under constant surveillance. "If I had to go to the bathroom, a policeman - I don’t even know if they were policemen - would follow me. Those 32 hours were an incredible experience," he continued.
His ordeal ended when he was escorted onto a plane by the police chief at Havana airport, surrounded by several agents who remained on board. "I still have physical pain from having slept in that place. [...] There are also psychological aftereffects, the journalist complained. I’m still disturbed because I don’t know what those guys wanted." Ayoub believes he was subjected to this degrading treatment because of his pro-Israeli activism. "That’s what explains it all, with all the questions they asked me and the way they treated me," he added. To recall, Cuba broke off diplomatic relations with Israel in 1973 and supports the creation of a sovereign Palestinian state.
