The Cuban government denounced today that the United States has repeatedly denied consular accesses to Rene Gonzalez, one of the five anti-terrorist fighters of the island unjustly held in that northern country.
Rene has been the object of a new arbitrariness by the U.S. government, which hardens the conditions of his supervised release, and makes these increasingly resemble to those of a prison, the Ministry of Foreign Affairs states in a note.
That Ministry warned that Washington's purpose is to continue punishing the antiterrorist, who was detained in 1998 along with Gerardo Hernandez, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez and Ramon Labañino, for monitoring violent groups that from Miami act with impunity against Cuba.
Since September 2012, the State Department has refused all requests from the Cuban Interest Section in Washington so that diplomatic officials can make consular visits, which had permanently authorized during 13 years he was in prison, the text says.
Rene was released from prison in October 2011, and since then, he has been forced to remain three years more in the United States under supervised release. Activists and human rights organizations consider it an additional punishment.
The Cuban Foreign Ministry claims that the behavior of the U.S. government is a flagrant violation of its obligations under the Vienna Convention on Consular Relations of 1963.
This international treaty protects the right of the antiterrorist to communicate freely with officials from the Interests Section of the Caribbean island in U.S. territory.
Throughout the text released today, Havana blames Washington for the safety and physical integrity of Rene.
Along with the Cuban government, lawyers, hundreds of organizations, intellectuals, more than a dozen Nobel prizewinners, and citizens of dozens of countries demand to the White House the return to the country of the antiterrorist fighters, who were in the northern soil to prevent acts which over the years have left more than 3,400 victims in Cuba.