UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Updated on Cuban Five Case

Cuban Permanent Representative to the UN Rodolfo Reyes sent a letter to UN High Commissioner for Human Rights Navi Pillay updating her on the current situation of five Cuban antiterrorists unjustly held in US prisons.

The Cuban Five —Gerardo Hernández, Ramon Labañino, Fernando González, Antonio Guerrero and René González—were given harsh sentences ranging from 15 years to consecutive life terms plus 15 years in a trial plagued with irregularities and held in a highly biased Miami court.

The five Cubans had been working to uncover information about terrorist activities being planned and carried out against Cuba by ultra-rightwing organizations based in southern Florida with a long record of terrorist actions against Cuba and the Cuban people. When they turned their information over to US authorities they were arrested and have been in jail ever since. The five men have been imprisoned for close to 13 years now.

Cuban Ambassador Rodolfo Reyes said that the letter provides an update of the situation of the five men, with emphasis on the case of Gerardo Hernandez, who has recently filed a habeas corpus appeal.

Reyes noted that Opinion No. 19/2005 of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention described the case of the Cuban Five as arbitrary.

The Cuban ambassador also sent letters to several UN Human Rights Commission officials, including the Special Rapporteurs on the independence of judges and lawyers, on torture and other cruel treatment, and from the Working Group on Arbitrary Detention.  

(Source )

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Checkout the  evidence uncovered by the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five that the U.S. Government has covertly paid tens of thousands of dollars to Miami journalists working for major media outlets who, during the federal government's politically-charged Miami prosecution, published often incendiary stories about Cuba and the five Cubans.