Demonstrators in Rome Demand Freedom for the Cuban Five

HAVANA, Cuba, June 21 (acn) Dozens of demonstrators took to the streets of Rome on Friday to protest the visit to Italy by US President George W. Bush and to demand the immediate release of the five Cuban antiterrorist fighters held for nearly 10 years in US prisons.

Members of solidarity with Cuba groups, lawyers, artists, and other professionals carried banners with the images of Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, René González, Gerardo Hernández and Fernando González, known as the Cuban Five, as well as huge posters with pictures of Fidel, Raul Castro and Che Guevara.

The Cuba five were framed and arrested by FBI agents after they had collected information on Florida-based ultra-right groups that carried out terrorist actions against the Cuban people over the past four decades. They were submitted to a biased trial in the US city of Miami and given unfair and extremely long sentences.

Another protest action took place in front of the US embassy in Italy, where participants demanded justice for the Cuban Five and condemned the most recent decision by the 11th Circuit of Atlanta’s Court of Appeals, which upheld the convictions of the Five—down Court decision from www.freethefive.org .

 The National Secretary of the Italy-Cuba National Friendship Association read a communiqué expressing the organization’s rejection of the Atlanta decision. The document urges the Italian government and Parliament, and even the European Union, to demand Washington respect for International and US Laws.