New international campaign for wives' rights to visit

Havana, December 11 (RHC)-Adriana Perez has not seen her husband Gerardo Hernandez for nine years. Olga Salanueva has not seen her husband, Rene Gonzalez, for seven years.

Their husbands are two of the five Cuban men imprisoned nine years ago in the United States, where they were collecting information on terrorist organisations planning attacks on Cuba.

"Not only has my husband been unjustly imprisoned, his family has also been treated appallingly," writes Salanueva in a statement published by the Guardian two years ago.

"Neither my daughters nor myself have seen him because the US refuses me a visa to visit him in prison. Our younger daughter, Ivette, is a US citizen by birth, as is René. Yet they are denied a fundamental right that is supposedly guaranteed US citizens by law."

"Time and again the United States has arbitrarily denied me the possibility of visiting René. There is no reason to justify this denial. Like Adriana Pérez, the wife of fellow-prisoner Gerardo Hernández, I am suffering as an additional punishment to the unjust sentence imposed on my husband."

Today, two years later, she has still not been allowed to visit him.

Both women have recently been denied visas for an eighth time, to enter the United States and visit their husbands in jail. To coincide with International Human Rights Day, which fell on December 10th, a new international campaign was launched on Tuesday December 11th.

An International Commission was created to force the United States to put an end to this arbitrary abuse of the human rights of these two women and their husbands, denied the right to a kiss, an embrace or a face to face conversation for so many years.

The commission's one hundred members come from twenty seven countries around Latin America and the world and include artists and writers as well as representatives of social movements, women's rights groups, religious organisations and political parties,

The group is urging a wave of international pressure to persuade the US government to reverse its decision and grant visas to Perez and Salanueva. The commission's argument centers around the arbitrary and unfounded claims that Olga Salanueva and Adriana Perez are a threat to national security or possible immigrants.

Speaking at the press launch of the commission, Olga Salanueva said the visa denials were wholly based on lies and fabrication, emphasising that no family member of the Five has any kind of link with espionage, and they pose no threat to US national security.

The US's refusal to grant visas to the two women has been condemned by Amnesty International three times, in 2003, 2006 and 2007.

Graciela Ramirez, the co-ordinator of the International Committee for Freedon and Justice for the Cuban Five, said that the international commission was born of the enourmous indignation she and many others felt when Olga and Adriana were denied visas for the eighth time.

She said that over time this constant denial and the resulting separation had become a form of psychological torture and cruelty applied to both the two men in prison and their two wives.

Ramirez explained the importance of international pressure, stressing that it has had very positive results in the past.

When US authorities placed the Five in solitary confinement, giving prison authorities permission to keep them there for an indefinitely extendable period, international pressure forced a reversal of the decision within just thirty days.

Roberto Gonzalez, brother of Rene Gonzalez was also at the event. As one of the defence lawyers on the case, he explained that the US authorities' refusal to grant visas to Olga and Adriana goes against the US constitution, is legally unfounded and constitutes an abuse of human rights

María Eugenia Guerrero, sister of Antonio, highlighted the cruelty of the US government in denying the right of these families to see each other. She has been able to visit her brother on limited occasions, and said that these visits are vital for his moral. To keep Olga and Adriana from visiting their husbands, she said, creates immesurable pain.

Peruvian Women Demand Visas for Olga and Adriana

Graciela Ramirez also added that in a related event, some 100 Peruvian women demanded on Monday that the US Embassy in Lima grant visas to Olga Salanueva and Adriana Perez.

Prensa Latina reports that the Peruvian women presented 120 petitions for visas for Olga Salanueva and Adriana Perez, the wives of Rene Gonzalez and Gerardo Hernandez respectively.

Despite hostility by police and private guards from the embassy, the petitioners challenged the diplomatic officials' refusal to receive the petitions.

Called by the Peruvian Committee of Solidarity with the Five Cuban Prisoners, the petitioners also released five white pigeons as a symbol of their demand for freedom for The Five.

The event was Peru's contribution to the International Campaign sponsored by the Latin American Solidarity Network, which was recently created in Quito, Ecuador, within the framework of the Fifth Continental Meeting of Solidarity with Cuba and The Five.

It was one of a series of events that will be carried out by groups of women in across Latin America.

Public Action

The US Committee to Free the Five is calling on supporters to send individual letters to the UN Human Rights Commission before January 15th, urging action under the "1503 Procedure".

The 1503 Procedure is the mechanism whereby individuals can write a letter regarding human rights violations which are examined by a Working Group that is in turn designated by the Sub-Commission on the Promotion and Protection of Human Rights. Called the Working Group on Communications, it meets annually to examine complaints received from individuals and groups alleging human rights violations.

The objective of the letter is to persuade the UNHRC to launch a serious investigation into the U.S. government's denial of family visits to the Cuban Five, especially in the case of Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pérez.

On average, the wives, mothers and children of the Cuban Five have only been granted one to two visits per year, but Perez and Salanueva have been continuously denied this right. As a result, Ivette González, the seven-year-old daughter of Olga Salanueva and René Gonzalez, is also deprived of the right to see her father. She is a U.S citizen by birth.

For more information see: http://www.freethefive.org/families.htm