Nobel Peace Prize Winner Rigoberta Menchú Sends Letter to President Obama Asking for the Freedom of the Cuban 5

Your Excellency, Mr. President of the United States of America, Mr. Barack Obama and to the Honorable Congress:

With particular attention I have followed the case of five Cuban citizens for 15 years. During all this time, I have expressed that their sentences is the result of a process that is neither just nor objective.

I came to support this position after learning that in the year 2005 the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (Opinion No. 19/2005), declared the detention of Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and René González to be arbitrary.

I hold a profound conviction that the people of the United States, that you represent, trust the sincerity in which your institutions should operate, in particular the judicial system. I have no doubt either that they believe that their government institutions should operate with unrestricted adherence to the respect of human rights and humanitarian principle. I consider that these values should be priority to address the situation of the citizens mentioned above.

Under these premises, in this occasion, I add my voice to the call made by 6,000 intellectuals and artists, other Nobel Prize winners, intellectuals, parliaments, and parliamentarian groups from all over the world in favor of the freedom of the Cuban citizens arrested in September  1998. For that reason I respectfully ask the President and Congress of the United of America, to adopt the necessary measures so the truth can be known, following all political, humanitarian and judicial procedures to put an end to what I consider, as well as all of those who have spoken about this case and I now reiterate, it is an injustice. 

I have no doubt, and neither does public opinion, that if you find a prompt humanitarian and just solution, the government, Congress and the judicial system of the United States will give honor to the spirit of justice desired by the people of the United States.

Dra. Rigoberta Menchú Tum
President of the Foundation and
Nobel Prize Winner
Guatemala, June 4, 2013

For more information about the Cuban 5 visit:  www.thecuban5.org
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International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5

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