Miami Five out of solitary confinement

Campaign News | Wednesday, 2 April 2003

STATEMENT BY THE CUBAN NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

STATEMENT BY THE CUBAN NATIONAL ASSEMBLY

April 1st, 2003

As a result of public denunciation and numerous messages of protest,

the Government of Washington decided to put an end to the arbitrary

solitary confinement that it had imposed to Gerardo Hernández, René

González, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Fernando González, and

to place them again in the general penal population, although

maintaining against them several completely discriminatory

restrictions.

It has been demonstrated that during a month, the Government of the

United States violated the rights of the prisoners, of their lawyers

and the norms of due process, seriously damaging the appeal process.

Taking them now out of ‘the hole’, the U.S. Government is proving

that never existed a ‘national security’ justification and that it

was obliged to go back because of the denunciations and protests.

The U.S. Government has not finished yet with its arbitrary,

discriminatory and illegal actions. It still maintains inadmissible

prohibitions related to the use of the phone, the correspondence, the

consular access and the family visits, that should be completely

lifted.

It was proved the strength of the international solidarity and its

capacity to act with efficacy, even in very difficult circumstances,

due to the fact that the information about this issue in the big

media was virtually zero.

The Government of the United States in March, 2003 has repeated the

methods and techniques that it used before to prevent a fair trial,

that is precisely the principal question that the Atlanta Appeal

Court should consider. That is the best proof to demonstrate that

that Court should dismiss the Miami farce and order the release of

the five prisoners.

It is necessary to multiply and intensify the solidarity, now that we

have this additional proof about the serious misconduct of the U.S.

Government.

The solidarity took them out of ‘the hole’.

The solidarity will free them.

The Cuban National Assembly

Havana, April 1st, 2003



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