July 2 (Bloomberg) -- A few weeks ago, Normando Hernandez Gonzalez got the kind of news that usually prompts cheers and emotion-filled toasts.

The Cuban journalist and poet had been awarded the annual Freedom of Expression award by the Norwegian Writers’ Union. A delegation traveled from Oslo to the island nation to present the award, which included a prize of 100,000 kroner (about $15,775).

In this case, there were no hugs, no toast. Gonzalez, 39 and seriously ill, has been in prison for six years, except for a few stays in a Havana military hospital. Much of his incarceration has been spent at the notorious Kilo 7 in Camaguey.

Gonzalez is one of 29 journalists arrested in the “Black Spring” of March 2003, when 75 dissidents were convicted of “endangering the state’s independence or territorial integrity,” according to the Cuban government. Gonzalez, who doesn’t share filmmaker Michael Moore’s enthusiasm for Cuba’s health-care system, published stories critical of the health, education and judicial agencies. His reward was a 25-year sentence.

Since then, seven of the dissident writers have been released, while conditions for Gonzalez and others have only worsened, according to his mother, Blanca, who lives in Miami, and his wife, Yarai Reyes, who lives in Vertientes, a small town not far from the prison. I’ve spoken with them several times over the past two years.

Second-Best

According to an international watchdog group, the Committee to Protect Journalists, Cuba is the world’s second-leading jailer of journalists, after China.

Cuba’s “imprisoned journalists live in inhumane conditions,” the CPJ reported in a June 15 letter to leaders of the European Union. “Their health is deteriorating, and their families are harassed by local authorities. To date, no international humanitarian organizations have visited any of the imprisoned Cuban journalists.”

Courtesy of Norwegian writer Henrik Hovland and the New York chapter of International PEN, a group that monitors human- rights abuses of writers around the world, I was able to watch as Gonzalez received news of the Norwegian award. (You can view it here.)

Telephone Call

Hovland, accompanied by Norwegian Writers’ Union President Anne Oterholm and an Oslo news crew, journeyed from Havana to the sugar-cane-growing region of Camaguey province. There in Vertientes, Yarai and her daughter, Daniela, live in a tiny spartan house.

It was wrenching to watch Daniela, who was celebrating her first birthday when her father was arrested, spring into action each time the phone rings, hoping it’s him on one of the scheduled calls the authorities allow each month. His communications are strictly regulated.

When Gonzalez finally got through, Daniela reluctantly turned the phone over to the Norwegians, who informed him of the award and spoke briefly about his living conditions.

“He sees the prize as something for all political prisoners in Cuba,” Hovland, 43, told me in a telephone interview from Oslo. “He talked about his health and the conditions in jail for political prisoners. He confirmed that his weight is down to 52 kilos (114 pounds).

“But you know, he told Yarai that he had a grin on his face when he got the news about the prize. He sounded happy.”

On Monday, Alberto Gonzalez, a spokesman for the Cuban government, spoke to me from his office in Washington.

Real Criminal

“We do not consider him to be a journalist,” he said of Normando Gonzalez. “The crimes he committed were very real, crimes linked to the American section in Havana.” (Because the U.S. has no formal diplomatic relations with Cuba, the countries maintain “Special Interests” sections in each other’s capitals.)

“It’s pretty common that the U.S. provides support by way of computers, libraries, et cetera to dissidents,” I was told by Anna Kushner, a PEN staff member in New York who has had extensive contact with Normando Gonzalez’s family.

The dissident writers, she added, never denied having contact with the Americans in Havana. And in a much-publicized gesture of support, Blanca Gonzalez was seated in the First Lady’s box at President George Bush’s 2008 State of the Union address.

The Cuban spokesman denied that any of the “Black Spring” prisoners had been singled out for harsh treatment.

None Died

“Our system in Cuba is to take care of all the people, including prisoners,” he said. “You cannot find evidence of any prisoner who has died.”

That, however, if true, may be more a matter of luck than of policy. While in prison, Normando Gonzalez has suffered with increasingly serious illnesses, including a severe intestinal disorder that prevents him from absorbing nutrition. He is, his mother says, in constant pain.

But he is also defiant, having refused to renounce his positions. That is almost certainly why he continues to suffer at Kilo 7, where the conditions are “subhuman,” according to Martha Beatriz Roque, a prominent Cuban journalist.

The image that stays with me is the most human of all: A child pressing the telephone to her ear, listening to her father’s voice and assuring him that she has been eating and has stopped crying -- both of which, Hovland told me, were untrue.

“Papi! Papi! Muchos besitos!” Daniela said: Many kisses, undoubtedly sweeter even than the accolades of good-willed friends from Oslo.

(Jeremy Gerard is an editor for Bloomberg News. The opinions expressed are his own.)

To contact the writer of this column: Jeremy Gerard in New York at jgerard2@bloomberg.net.

Last Updated: July 2, 2009 00:01 EDT