The Narco News Bulletin

Narco News Contributor Attacked in Puerto Rico

A "Journalist" Defames Dr. Rafael Andrés Escribano

By Luis A. Gómez
Special to The Narco News Bulletin

August 22, 2005
This report appears on the internet at http://www.narconews.com/Issue38/article1405.html

During the last few weeks, Dr. Rafael Andrés Escribano has been the object of virulent attacks from hack "journalist" Rolando Torres of Christian broadcaster Radio Redentor, who accuses Escribano of "promoting drug use among the youth" of Puerto Rico. Escribano, a dear friend of this newspaper and known historian of the role cannabis has played in the history of his country, committed the "sin" of acknowledging, in a university forum, responding to a question that a panelist had asked, that he is a consumer of that herb.

The most worrying part of the case is that, according to all indications, the authorities at the Inter-American University of Puerto Rico, Arecibo campus, have unleashed a sort of hidden repression against Dr. Escribano, who lectures there, leaving his contractual situation in limbo. This solution, still unresolved, undoubtedly affects this practicing linguist's academic career, and is a clear example of the harmful effects of the so-called "war on drugs," where an intellectual is not just denied the ability to freely express his opinion but is also denied the right his right to work at all... But let's let Rafael Andrés Escribano be the one to tell us the story, with his "Hermetically Open Letter to the President of the Inter-American University," first published in Spanish on his website - Logofilo's Rarae Novae - and now translated on Narco News:

http://www.narconews.com/docs/escribano_letter.html

Stay with us, kind readers... we're not going to leave Dr. Rafael Andrés Escribano alone in his battle - which of course he did not seek - with false prophets disguised as "journalists."