Europeans Demand Release of Cuban Five

HAVANA, Cuba, Jul 1 (acn) Solidarity-with-Cuba Asociations from Portugal, Spain and Bulgaria claimed the immediate release of the five Cuban antiterrorist fighters unfairly imprisoned in the US since 1998.

The associations PortoComCuba, from Portugal, and Francisco Villamil, Spain,agreed to develop joint initiatives to denounce the unfair incarceration of Gerardo Hernandez, Rene Gonzalez, Ramon Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando Gonzalez, known by the international campaign for their release as the Cuban Five, Prensa Latina reported.

The commitment is included in a motion passed in Santiago de Compostela, Galicia, where about a hundred members of both associations met to discuss actions to spread the truth and break the media silence about the case.

The Cuban Five were arrested in 1998 in Miami and sentenced in 2001 in a biased trial held in that American city. The five were condemned to harsh terms ranging from 15 years in prison to two life terms for screening anti-Cuban terrorist organizations bades in Florida.

Meanwhile, more than 1,000 signatures were collected in Bulgaria to demand U.S. President Barack Obama to release the Cuban Five, says a press release by Cuban Foreign Ministry posted at its website www.cubaminrex.cu.

The Cuban embassy in Sofia served as venue for a meeting of the Bulgaria-Cuba Friendship Association chaired by Stanka Shopova, the group’s president. The meeting tackled the theme of the Cuban Five and the European campaign to collect one million signatures to demand the freedom of the Cuban Five.

In Jamaica, the alternative digital magazine YESCUBA, edited by Jamaica’s solidarity-with-Cuba organizations bearing the same name, published its 25th issue which provides broad information about the case of the Cuban Five, according to a report at www.cubaminrex.cu.

The publication contains a feature article about the visit to Kingston, in May, of Olga Salanueva and Adriana Perez, wives of Rene Gonzalez and Gerardo Hernandez, respectively.

Both women were part of the Cuban delegation that participated in the International Ecumenical Meeting for Peace summoned by the World Council of Churches.

Cuban News Agency