Spanish Activists to Continue Campaigning for Cuban Five in 2015

The Madrid committee for the release of five Cuban antiterrorists sentenced in the United States said on Sunday that it will continue its campaign until the three members of the group who are still in prison are set free. In 2015, we will continue demanding their release and informing on their case, because they are antiterrorists, defenders of the Cuban people and in general of Humankind, who were sentenced in a rigged trial, said Aracely Escudero, a member of the committee’s coordinating group.

In statements to Prensa Latina in a demonstration in Madrid’s Puerta del Sol, which the group held every month in 2014, Escudero recalled that the Five infiltrated extremist groups in the United States to prevent attacks on Cuba.

Later, she noted, Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino, Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez (the two latter are already in Cuba after doing their time in prison) were sentenced in a rigged trial in which they were deprived of their rights.

It was a farce in which, among other irregularities, information was hidden from the defense attorneys and the government paid journalists to stir up the hostile environment in Miami, where the trial was held to create an atmosphere of hatred.

We think that in addition to being a political trial (because they went to prison for defending Cuba and believing in the Revolution), it is a case of human rights and they are antiterrorists, Escudero noted.

According to the Spanish activist, the United States has shown its double standard and great contradictions in this case, because its government presents itself as the champion of antiterrorism in the world and the Five were precisely fighting terrorism.

She recalled that in support of their cause, members of the Madrid committee demonstrated once a month at Puerta del Sol in 2014 to demand their release and share information in Spanish and English, as it is a site in the Spanish capital visited by many Spaniards and foreigners.

Every year, on the day of the arrests of the Five, the group organizes a demonstration in front of the US Embassy to demand the release of those who put their lives in the hands of terrorists so that their people can live in peace.