Press Statement from the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five

June 15, 2009

The US Supreme Court announced today that it will not review the case of the Five Cuban Patriots. This decision denies our 5 brothers, unjustly imprisoned from more than a decade for monitoring terrorist organizations based in Miami, from ever having the possibility of an impartial and just trial outside Miami.

The same justice system that denies the possibility of reviewing the case of our five brothers has granted a year postponement to the defense of the international terrorist20Luis Posada Carriles to better prepare his case. This is the same system that with total impunity, has allowed dozens of criminal organizations based in Miami to operate freely.

This is also the same government that has ignored the statement of the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention that declared the Cuban Five’s detentions arbitrary and illegal. With this decision the Court scoffs not only the requests from the defense lawyers, but also the international demand of 10 Nobel Prize winners, hundreds of Jurists, Members of Parliaments and Organizations that from all over the world joined 12 Amicus Briefs asking the court to review the case.

Nothing surprises us coming from a system that allowed the legalization of the most terrible torture and accepts with impunity criminals like Posada, Bosch, Basulto and Frómeta, among others, to walk the streets of Miami freely. All of this while five men are unjustly imprisoned for peacefully protecting their country against terrorist attacks.

This day will be marked in our calendars as a shameful day in the justice system of the United States and the lack of action from the Obama government towards the terrorist groups that have maintained justice as a hostage.

June 15 2009 will also be marked as the beginning of a new resistance that from this day forward will be felt all over the world until freedom is achieved for Gerardo, Ramón, René, Antonio and Fernando.

We will not wait any longer to commemorate another year of their arrests to organize international days of actions. We will transform our pain and indignation into hundreds of expressions of struggle in the streets, in front of US embassies, in universities, in parliaments, in churches, with our scarce resources and means but with all the strength that gives the truth and the reason.

We are all certain that, as Gerardo said when he learned about the news, “as long as one person remains struggling outside we will continue to resist until there is justice.”

This international journey for the freedom of the Cuban Five starts today and will extend every day of our lives until they return to their homeland.

We appeal to our friends from all over the world to demand more than ever that the Obama government put an end to this colossal injustice and to grant the immediate freedom to the Five.