[Marxism] Alarcón: "There is no justification for keeping our five heroes in prison"

["Walter Lippmann" <walterlx@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>]

The campaign to free the Cuban Five takes a profound new
turn in light of the court's decision overturning the
verdicts and remanding the case for a new trial outside
of Miami. The 93-page document has had a deep impact.

Even the MIAMI HERALD, in light of the court's decision 
has now agreed that the defendants couldn't have gotten a 
fair trial in the city of which they are the dominant media
expression. The demand to FREE THE FIVE becomes even more
urgent and more timely than ever now.

Listen to an excellent discussion on Francisco Aruca's
Radio Progreso website. Here the show for August 10 and 11

These first commentary is ten minutes long. The second is
PARTICULARLY IMPORTANT, with Ira Kurzban, the distinguished
Miami attorney who also serves as counsel to the Haitian
president Jean-Bertrand Aristide. 

Follow this to listen to Kurzban's discussion with Aruca:
http://makeashorterlink.com/?G1D921A9B 

Complete transcript of 11th Circuit court decision:
http://www.walterlippmann.com/cubanfive-11thcircuit.html
=========================================================


GRANMA INTERNATIONAL
Havana. August 10, 2005

http://www.granma.cu/ingles/2005/agosto/juev11/34JUSTIF5.html

There is no justification for keeping our five heroes in prison

? States Ricardo Alarcón on arrival in Venezuela

BY MARIA JULIA MAYORAL AND RICARDO LOPEZ HEVIA
Granma daily special correspondents?

CARACAS, August 10.? "The five Cuban political prisoners in U.S.
jails have already been detained for more than 24 hours in violation
of the logical consequences of a U.S. court, whose unanimous finding
overturned their sentences and ordered a retrial," Ricardo Alarcón
stated last night on his arrival in this city with Foreign Minister
Felipe Pérez Roque to participate in the debates of the 16th World
Festival of Youth and Students.

The president of the Cuban National Assembly of People?s Power told
the press that the immediate release of the Five must be demanded.
The first person to articulate this demand, he explained, was U.S.
lawyer Paul McKenna, defending Gerardo Hernández.

The attorney stated that his client has been declared innocent and
has spent seven years in a maximum security prison, subjected to a
special regime, and that is completely illegal.

Alarcón recalled that a recent report from the UN Panel on Arbitrary
Detentions found the legal proceedings against the Five to be illegal
and arbitrary. In the face of that document the Washington
authorities argued that they had been convicted in the courts. "But
now it is not an international institution that has reached that
conclusion, but a higher U.S. court than the Miami one which unjustly
convicted our compatriots. So what pretext can they come up with now
to not release them?" asked the Cuban leader.

"The U.S. government will have to decide whether to appeal the
finding or not, but in either case it has to let them out now," he
maintained. "The appeal could take time and the retrial as well, and
they should be waiting for either step outside the jails.

"It is the first time in history that the Atlanta Court of Appeals
has produced such a detailed document, of 93 pages, in order to
analyze step by step how a lower court was mistaken. However, the
major U.S. press is ignoring the fact and continues repeating the
same lies and distortions deployed from before the trial of Antonio
Guerrero, Fernando González, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and
René González," the parliamentary president affirmed.

The first step in the wake of the Atlanta ruling is that the Five
should be taken to the same place where they were arrested, Miami,
and the second is that they should be released, Alarcón noted,
highlighting the professionalism and ethics demonstrated by the Court
of Appeals.

"The battle for the Five," he explained, "has not reached its end; it
is just that a new chapter is beginning and we have to keep up the
fight in every way we can."

Antonio, René, Gerardo, Ramón and Fernando are already aware of the
Atlanta Court decision. According to Alarcón, when Gerardo was
informed of the news he summed up the situation with his habitual
wit: "The game is zero, zero and now we?re at bat."

In the opinion of the leader of the Cuban Parliament, for its own
good the U.S. government should not persist in placing obstacles in
the way of the release of the Five, because that would go against its
already debilitated international prestige; among other things, it
will become more and more clear that the power capable of convicting
and imprisoning anti-terrorist combatants is at the same time
protecting notorious terrorists like Luis Posada Carriles.

Alarcón and Pérez Roque were met at the airport by Delcy Rodríguez,
deputy foreign minister of Venezuela; Germán Sánchez Otero, Cuban
ambassador to that South American nation; and Julio Martinez, first
secretary of the National Committee of the Young Communist League.



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