Sign the new Petition for the Five
Campaign News | Sunday, 17 February 2008
THE Cuba Solidarity Campaign is launching a drive to collect 5,000 signatures in order to secure visiting rights for the families of the Miami Five.
To sign the petition email you name and address to:
campaigns@cuba-solidarity.org.uk
or download a copy of the petition form at:
http://www.cuba-solidarity.org.uk/M5petitionjan08new.pdf
BACKGROUND TO THE CASE
On top of the unjust sentences being served by the Cubans, in 2007 the US Government granted visas to only two of their family members. For 18 months the men’s families have been forced to wait to for word about when - and if - they can travel to visit their sons, fathers or husbands.
The most extreme case is that of the wives of René Gonzalez and Gerardo Hernandez. Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pérez have not been allowed to visit them for seven and nine years respectively. September 12th marked the ninth anniversary of their arrest and the US Government chose to mark that anniversary by once again denying visas to the women.
More than a hundred people from 27 countries have formed an organisation called the International Commission for the Right of Family Visits on Behalf of Family Members of the Miami Five.
Father Geoff Bottoms, chair of CSC’s Miami Five Campaign, is one of two British representatives on the commission, and the other is MEP Glenys Kinnock.
Fr Bottoms said: “The US authorities are abusing the human rights of Adriana Perez and Olga Salanueva.
“We demand that they are granted visas.
“It is crucially important that we collect the 5,000 signatures as soon as possible so that we can demonstrate the depth of feeling about this grave injustice, and so I am calling on CSC’s members to put pen to paper for the families of the Miami Five.”
The commission bases its demand on the families’ rights to visit their loved ones in prison, a right backed by the United Nations, MPs, and Members of the European Parliament in a Written Declaration tabled last year. The commission includes personalities such as Noam Chomsky, Danny Glover and Nobel Peace Prize winner Rigoberta Menchú.
Dr. Miriam Palacios-Callender, a Cuban resident in the UK and CSC member, rececently collected one hundred signatures from women to accompany a letter she sent to US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights.
Dr Miriam said: “As women signing this letter we wish to express our concern for the repeated refusals by the US government to grant the visas. Olga and Adriana are asking for the most elementary right to see their husbands who have been unjustly and illegally incarcerated in different prisons in U.S. since 1998.”
SIGN THE CSC PETITION TODAY
1.Email your name and address to: campaigns@cuba-solidarity.org.uk or
2.Download a copy of the petition form at:
http://www.cuba-solidarity.org.uk/M5petitionjan08new.pdf
3. Forward this link to your friends families and colleagues and ask them to sign the petition today.
