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Call
for release of Cuban political prisoners in United
States in Forum
• During a
workshop at the World Social Forum in the presence
of the wives, daughters and other family members of
the Five, as they are known in the United States,
human rights activist Gloria La Riva calls for
public support for the appeal for a retrial before
an Atlanta Court
BY
LEONEL NODAL
PORTO
ALEGRE, Brazil, January 25 (PL).- Gloria La Riva,
the U.S. human rights activist, announced here today
a campaign to break the wall of silence concealing
the unjust sentences handed down for political
reasons to five Cubans incarcerated in the United
States.
During
a workshop at the World Social Forum, in the
presence of the wives, daughters and other family
members of the Five, she called for international
backing for the appeal for a retrial before an
Atlanta court.
Identified
in Cuba as “the prisoners of the empire,”
Antonio Guerrero, René González, Ramón Labañino,
Fernando González and Gerardo Hernández were
arrested on September 12, 1998 in Miami.
After
being held in solitary for 17 months, they were
sentenced in a rigged trial with no evidence,
characterizing a political revenge, according to
their defenders.
The
Five, three of them sentenced to life imprisonment
and the other two to 15 and 19 year terms, compiled
information from anti-Cuban terrorist organizations
based in Miami so as to frustrate their criminal
plans, but never threatened U.S. security in any
way.
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