Protesting ten years unjust imprisonment!

Press Release                                                                                                                                             August 31, 2008

Christchurch Cuba Friendship Society

Protesting ten years unjust imprisonment! 
 
12 noon, September 13th Victoria Square Christchurch

The Christchurch Cuba Friendship Society is hosting a gathering on the 13th of September to mark the 10th anniversary of the unjust imprisonment in the U.S. of the "Cuban Five".
 
Characterised by the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions as "arbitrary", the imprisonment of five Cuban highlights the contradictions in the US's War on Terror.
 
The decades-long history of terrorist attacks by Cuban exile groups has been aimed at Cuba's infrastructure and economy and has taken more than 3,400 Cuban lives. It was this history and a rise in terrorist attacks in the 1990s, which prompted Cuba to send the five men simply to monitor the right-wing exiles
 
Cuba had presented the material evidence gathered by the five to the FBI and demanded that appropriate action be taken. Instead, the FBI used the evidence to determine who collected it and, on Sept. 12, 1998, arrested the five—Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González and René González.
 
The gathering will also highlight the repeatedly denied visitation rights for their families - a violation of U.S. laws and international norms of prisoners' rights - a situation described by Amnesty International as unnecessarily punitive.
 
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