Monday, October 25, 2010

The Miami Five

Last week in Strasbourg I met with Olga Salanueva and Adriana Perez. The women's husbands are two of five Cubans, known in the UK as the Miami Five, arrested and jailed for spying by the US in 1998.

The United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions has declared the detention of these five Cubans to be both illegal and arbitrary and Amnesty International has expressed "grave concern" at both the impartiality of the judicial process in the original trial and the denial of US visas to these two wives so they can visit their husbands in jail.

While I am no legal expert as regards the trials and sentences of the Miami Five, I find it inhumane and unacceptable that the United States persistently refuse visas for these two women to see their husbands and will be working in the coming months to put pressure on the US authorities to change this sad state of affairs.

No comments:

Post a Comment