New International Campaign To demand Release of the Five

WASHINGTON.— A new international campaign demanding the release of the five Cuban antiterrorists serving stiff and unfair sentences in US prisons for over 11 years started on Monday with the printing of 20,000 postcards addressed to US president Barack Obama, reported PL news agency .

Fernando Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernandez, Rene Gonzalez and Ramon Labañino, internationally, known as the Cuban Five, were arrested in 1998 and submitted to a biased trial in the US city of Miami on charges that were not proven. However, the Five were given extremely long and unfair sentences including life terms.

The Cuban Five infiltrated and collected information on US-based ultra-right groups that have undertaken terrorist actions against the Cuban people over the past 50 years.

This campaign is based on the request by ten Nobel Prize winners demanding the immediate freedom of the Cuban Five from US prisons and inviting 2009 Nobel Prize winner Obama to join them.

The International Committee for the Release of the Five, as promoter of the initiative, reported that many friends and supportive organizations from Germany, Argentina, Belize, Bolivia, Canada, Chile, Colombia, Cuba, Lebanon, El Salvador, Spain, France, Guatemala, Ireland, Mexico, Peru, Puerto Rico, Sweden, Switzerland, Uruguay and Venezuela have already joined the claim.

"US president Obama must decide what to do as he is a Nobel Peace Prize-winner, and the time has come to be worthy of it," said the Committe in a comuniqué. (PL)