| | |  Americas & Beyond | December 2008 
Cuban Five Case Featured at Int’l Labor Conference in Tijuana
 Cuban News Agency
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| | Cuban President Raul Castro speaks with the press at the Itamarati Palace in Brasilia. Raul Castro last week proposed releasing jailed political dissidents in Cuba in exchange for five Cubans convicted of spying in the United States. (AFP/Joedson Alves) | |
Havana, Cuba - A three-day conference recently held in Tijuana, Mexico, featured a debate on the fight for the release of five Cuban revolutionaries who have been unfairly imprisoned in the US for more than 10 years.
A report sent to ACN by the Militant newspaper says Magali Llort, mother one of the five Cuban men, Fernando Gonzalez, spoke to 125 participants on the event about the fight in favor of their cause.
Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labañino, Rene Gonzalez, and Fernando Gonzalez—known internationally as the Cuban Five—were arrested by FBI agents in south Florida in 1998 and sentenced to long prison terms on false charges ranging from “conspiracy to commit espionage” to, in the case of Hernandez, “conspiracy to commit murder.” They had been in the United States keeping tabs on counterrevolutionary groups that have carried out violent attacks against Cuba.
“The five face an additional sentence, which is not written anywhere—the denial of family visits,” said Llort.
While all five have been allowed some family visits, Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pérez, whose husbands are Rene Gonzalez and Gerardo Hernandez, respectively, have been repeatedly denied visas to visit their husbands, she said.
Silvia Garcia, a staff person for Cuba’s National Assembly, noted that defense attorneys for the framed-up Cubans are preparing an appeal to the U.S. Supreme Court. She stressed the importance of the international defense campaign so the judges will “know the world is watching,” Garcia said, adding that the court agrees to hear only a small percentage of the cases that come before it.
Supporters of the fight are working to get “friend of the court” briefs worldwide backing the appeal. “A lot of parliaments, human rights commissions, and other bodies around the world have supported the case of the five,” Garcia said, including the Mexican Senate.
Alicia Jrapko, representing the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five, noted that Andrew Stern, president of the Service Employees International Union, sent a letter to President George Bush calling for relatives of the imprisoned Cubans to receive visas to visit.
Among those attending the program were about a dozen teachers and others from Mexicali, 120 miles east of Tijuana, who have been active in fighting cuts in social services. They said they plan to organize a local committee in defense of the five. |
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