The Cuban Five, Hostages of Washington’s Anti-Cuba Policy

The five Cuban anti-terrorist fighters held in the US are hostages of the absurd and anachronistic US policy imposed on Cuba during half a century, said Adriana Perez, wife of one of the Cubans serving unfair sentences in US jails.

Addressing the Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions, at the UN Human Rights Council, Perez recalled that this body had taken a stance against the sentences given to Rene Gonzalez, Ramon Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez and Gerardo Hernandez, known as the Cuban Five, PL news reported.

Although next May will mark seven years since the UN Working Group declared the incarceration of the Five as arbitrary, the US administration has turned a deaf ear on the issue, said Adriana Perez who has been repeatedly denied a visa to visit her husband  Gerardo Hernandez in jail.

President Barack Obama, Nobel Peace Laureate, has the possibility to release these Cubans who have sacrificed the best of their youth for the noble cause of defending life, Perez stressed.

She also referred to the situation of Rene Gonzalez, who met his prison sentence last October, but he has been forced to stay under probation in US territory for another three years.

Before addressing the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions, Adriana Perez explained the UN High Commissioner for Human Rights about the damage inflicted on the health of the five Cubans after nearly 14 years in prison and the suffering of their relatives for the long separation.

The Cuban Five were arrested in 1998 in the US by Federal agents; they were taken to punishment cells during seventeen months before facing a biased Miami trial, which gave them sentences ranging between 15 years and double life term plus 15 years, after they monitored the activities of Florida-based terrorist organizations.

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