Participants in an international event of solidarity in Canada considered cruel and unfair the treatment given in United States to five anti-terrorist Cuban fighters held in US prisons since September, 1998.
Pacifists, members of social movements and union leaders from several countries closed an assembly and a people's court in Toronto (southeast) with a 12-article ruling stating that Washington politicized the legal proceeding against Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labanino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez.
Four of these men are facing harsh sentences for monitoring Miami-based violent groups that plan actions like those which have caused more than 3,400 victims in Cuba in the past 53 years.
One of these five heroes, Rene Gonzalez, left prison on October 7th last year after serving a 13-year sentence, and is now facing an additional punishment of three more years under supervised release in Miami, the home to the anti-Cuban extreme left.
The text, released on the website of the event, recognized the existence of hard evidence on actions against Cuba by terrorist circles based in south Florida and the inefficiency of the White House to stop them.
It backed Cuba's right to defend itself from those actions and highlighted the work of The Cuban Five to prevent them peacefully and without putting into risk US national security.
The document also considered improbable the evidence underpinning the charge of conspiracy to commit murder filed against Gerardo Hernandez.
Regarding the payment of journalists, the ruling established that the US government interfered in the trial against these men by giving huge sums of money to media organizations in order to form an adverse opinion among the country's citizens.
"Because of all this we conclude that the Cuban Five were detained, tried and given sentences in an unfair way, in violation of international and US laws," said the document, proposing the annulment of the sentences given to them. It urged President Barack Obama to use his constitutional prerogatives to grant immediate, unconditional freedom to these men and authorize their return to Cuba.
The court and the people's assembly were held over the past weekend in Toronto as part of the global campaign of solidarity scheduled through next month in 31 countries, on occasion of the 14th anniversary of the imprisonment of these Cuban fighters in the United States.
Relatives of the Cuban Five, Cuban writer Miguel Barnet, Lemelin Denis (president of the Canadian Customs Workers' Union); British union leader Tony Woodley and activists Cindy Sheehan, Alicia Jrapko and Gloria La Riva, among others, attended these events.
Sponsors included the Canadian Network of Solidarity with Cuba, the Cuban-Canadian Friendship Association, the Canadian Union of Civil Servants and the International Council of Latin American and Caribbean Women LATIN@S.