Protest against US refusal to MEPs to visit the Cuban 5 in prison
A delegation of MEPs from the GUE/NGL parliamentary group, comprising of Georgios Toussas, Ilda Figueiredo, Willy Meyer Pleite, Sahra Wagenknecht and Kyriakos Triantaphyllides, requested officially by the US authorities some time ago to visit the 5 Cuban patriots Gerardo Hernandes, Antonio Guerrero, Ramon Labanino, Fernando Gonzalez and Rene Gonzalez. As it is know they are under illegal detention in the USA in violation of the basic principles of justice and exposed to the most outrageous conditions, including isolation.
As recently officially stated in Washigton D.C., the US prison authorities refused to allow the MEPs to visit the Cuban political detainees with the wretched excuse that they " did not know them personally [ the MEPs] before their imprisonment " .
This is a new provocative act by the US authorities against the 5 Cuban patriots who are being detained abusively. It confirms that the US Administration is not only violating elementary human rights for the 5, but also the basic principles of international and humanitarian law.
The unacceptable refusal of the US authorities is another outright provocation to worldwide democratic public opinion, to elected representatives of various countries and confirms political motivation behind the continuing incarceration of the 5.
We denounce the unacceptable decision of the US Government and we insist on our absolutely legal demand to visit the Cuban prisoners.
We appeal to the concerned authorities to intervene in order our visit to the 5 Cuban prisoners to the US prisons to become possible, so that we can be informed of the imprisonment conditions and the observation of their rights in conformity with the human rights and the international treaties.
Athens, 19 July 2007
e-mail:cpg@int.kke.gr