WHO ARE THE CUBAN FIVE

• VOICES OF SUPPORT
• THE CASE
• DENIALS OF FAMILY VISITS
• MEDIA COVERAGE
• ACT NOW

The just demand for the right of family visits for the Cuban Five presented in Richmond, California

 

On Saturday March 8th, over to 200 people, the great majority women, gathered in the Lavonya Dejean Middle School of the city of Richmond to celebrate International Women’s Day.

The event was an extraordinary show of the racial and ethnic diversity of the city including African Americans, Latinos, Asians, Native Americans and Whites, and also age diversity, from adolescents to senior citizens.  The event underscored the divergent struggles that women are involved in both collective activity and their personal day to day lives. The meeting focused on the prevalent poverty and violence in Richmond and also the struggles that affect women from other parts of the world such as the resistance to the oppression in Haiti, the Philippines, to the struggle for the rights of family visits that the family of the Cuban Five is fighting for.

The event opened with a welcoming by the Mayor of the city, Gayle McLaughlin. The day long event included cultural presentations, short videos and round table discussions with a variety of themes including health, education, nutrition, violence, and the struggle for peace and for economic and social justice.

One of the round table's central themes focused on “Friendship and International Solidarity” and was chaired by the U.S. Cuba Sister City - Richmond-Regla project and the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five.  Round table participants were able to see photos taken at cultural events in the city of Regla, and had the opportunity to hear the case of the Cuban Five and the struggle for the rights of family visits.      

Jury Kochiyama, the legendary civil rights activist was the special guess to the event. Kochiyama spoke about the struggle for the freedom of political prisoners in the United States and made a call to put and end to the US war and occupation of Iraq.

After her presentation the full auditorium watched a short video where Adriana Perez spoke about the denial of the US government to grant visas to herself and Olga Salanueva to visit their husbands Gerardo and Rene in US prisons. Also, in the video, Adriana thanked Mayor McLaughlin for her support in this just demand.  The great majority of participants in the event had never heard about the case of the Five and were touched to hear the story described by Adriana. At the end of the video, many of the participants joined the international campaign to send postcards to Condoleezza Rice asking her to grant mediate humanitarian visas to Olga and Adriana.  

As more people in the United States and around the world learn about the unjustifiable denial of visas to Olga and Adriana the harder it becomes for the U.S. to justify this violation of a basic right of all human beings.