Message from Cuban Five Read at UN Human Rights Council

According to Prensa Latina news agency, Olga Salanueva, wife of Rene
Gonzalez, one of the Cuban Five- as they are internationally known -,
read the document signed by her husband and Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labanino and Fernando Gonzalez.

The president of the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention, Leila
Zerrougui, recalled that almost three years ago the office she heads
declared the detention and imprisonment of the Cuban Five illegal and
arbitrary.

In their message, the Cuban Five recognize that this decision made in
2005 opened a path to decency in their judicial process after seven
years of imprisonment, in an environment of solitary confinement and
separation from their families.

Salanueva and Adriana Perez, wife of Gerardo Hernandez, have a packed
agenda of meetings with UN officials, and other representatives from the
Vatican, the World Council of Churches and solidarity organizations.

In their message, the Cuban Five emphasized noted that “all the plots
against us, enacted in a media circus atmosphere, have sought to protect
the terrorists that motivated our presence in the United States.”

“Three years after the honorable declaration by the UN Working Group was issued, the farce continues. Another equally solid and honorable ruling by the appeals court was buried under a muddle of dark conspiratorial procedures,” wrote the Cuban Five.

“The most dangerous terrorists of the Western Hemisphere walk the
streets of Miami and receive protection while our children become
teenagers or adults far from the warmth of their fathers,” they added.