Cuban Five - International Criticism of The Convictions, and U.S. Response

International Criticism of The Convictions, and U.S. Response

Since their conviction, there has been an international campaign for the case to be appealed. In the United States, the campaign is most conspicuously represented by the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five which is represented in twenty U.S. cities and over thirty countries.

On 27 May 2005, the United Nations Commission on Human Rights adopted a report by its Working Group on Arbitrary Detention stating its opinions on the facts and circumstances of the case and calling upon the U.S. government to remedy the situation. Among the report's criticisms of the trial and sentences, section 29 states:

29. The Working Group notes that it arises from the facts and circumstances in which the trial took place and from the nature of the charges and the harsh sentences handed down to the accused that the trial did not take place in the climate of objectivity and impartiality that is required in order to conform to the standards of a fair trial as defined in article 14 of the International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights, to which the United States of America is a party.

Amnesty International has criticized the U.S. treatment of the Cuban Five as "unnecessarily punitive and contrary both to standards for the humane treatment of prisoners and to states’ obligation to protect family life", as the wives of René Gonzáles and Gerardo Hernández have not been allowed visas to visit their imprisoned husbands. Amnesty said in early 2006 that it was "following closely the status of the ongoing appeals of the five men of numerous issues challenging the fairness of the trial which have not yet been addressed by the appeal courts."

The U.S. Government has responded to these claims, stating that the prisoners have received over a hundred visits from family members granted visas. The government contends that the wives of González and Hernández are members of the Cuban Intelligence Directorate, and thus pose a risk to the national security of the United States:

Consistent with the right of the United States to protect itself from covert spies, the U.S. government has not granted visas to the wives of two prisoners. Evidence presented at their husbands’ trial revealed that one of these women was a member of the Wasp Network who was deported for engaging in activity related to espionage and is ineligible to return to the United States. The other was a candidate for training as a Directorate of Intelligence U.S.-based spy when U.S. authorities broke up the network.

Eight international Nobel Prize winners have written and sent a document to the U.S. Attorney General calling for freedom for the Cuban Five, signed by Zhores Alferov (Nobel Prize for Physics, 2000), Desmond Tutu (Nobel Peace Prize, 1984), Nadine Gordimer (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1991), Rigoberta Menchú (Nobel Peace Prize, 1992), Adolfo Pérez Esquivel (Nobel Peace Prize, 1980), Wole Soyinka (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1986), José Saramago (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1996), Günter Grass (Nobel Prize in Literature, 1999).

In the United Kingdom, among other actions, 110 Members of Parliament wrote an open letter to the U.S. Attorney General in support of the Five.

In April 2009, a Brazilian human rights group, Torture Never Again, awarded the Five its Chico Mendes Medal, alleging that their rights had been violated, declaring that "their mail is censored and their visiting rights are very restricted."

In 2011, Brazilian writer Fernando Morais wrote The Last Soldiers of the Cold War, about the Cuban Five. The book is based on over 40 interviews and documents of the governments of United States and Cuba.