Reprinted from Caribbean Net News
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Cuban delegation 'boycotted' by US-owned Oslo hotel
01-05-2007

OSLO, Norway (AFP): An Oslo hotel belonging to the Nordic chain Scandic has refused to admit a delegation of Cubans because it has been bought by the US hotel group Hilton, Scandic said on Thursday.

"We belong to the Hilton group in the United States and we are applying their decision," Geir Lundkvist, the administrative director of Norway's Hilton-Scandic hotels, told AFP.

Hilton bought Scandic, the leading hotel chain in Scandinavia, in March last year, and the US economic boycott of Cuba now applies to Hilton's hotels in Norway.

The Cuban delegation, consisting of more than a dozen representatives of the tourism sector according to the Norwegian media, is scheduled to take part in a tourism trade fair in Lillestroem, 40 kilometers (25 miles) from Oslo, from January 11 to 14.

The group has attended the fair five years in a row and always stayed at the Scandic hotel in question.

"It's regrettable and I'm surprised that this has happened in Norway," one member of the delegation told the daily VG.

Foreign ministry undersecretary Raymond Johansen said the decision "sounds totally unacceptable", recalling that Norway maintains diplomatic ties with Cuba, news agency NTB reported.

The anti-racism organisation "Antirasistisk senter" filed a complaint against Scandic to the Norwegian police, accusing the hotel of "violating legislation which prohibits all discrimination based on race or ethnicity," the organisation's spokesman Henrik Lunde told AFP.