Blind justice or just blind stupidity?

Gerardo Hernández, one of five Cuban prisoners whom the United Nations Working Group on Arbitrary Detentions ruled in 2005 was illegally detained, was last week thrown into ‘the hole’ in a prison in Victorville, California.

The California-based International Committee to Free the Five reported that Leonard Weinglass, one of the attorneys on Gerardo's appeals team, told them that when he and fellow attorney Peter Schey called the prison to arrange a visit with Gerardo for Saturday, July 31 they were informed they would only be allowed a visit with a glass partition between them, and they could not carry pencil or pen and paper, or bring legal documents. This, to visit to a client with an active habeas corpus appeal!

As if the persecution of the Cuban Five hasn’t attracted enough adverse attention both nationally and internationally, the prison seems hell-bent on surpassing the sorry record already set, by not only denying proper access to his legal team but also by locking Hernández into a two-meter long, one-meter wide cell where temperatures reach over 35 degrees - despite the fact that he was recently diagnosed with several medical problems, which remain untreated. It seems Obama’s health reforms don’t stretch as far as his penitentiaries....or his promises.

In Port of Spain in April 2009 he told CNN "...the United States seeks a new beginning with Cuba," "Decades of mistrust must be overcome," and "I am not interested in talking for the sake of talking." Many hoped and expected that the debacles of the case of the Cuban Five would be high on the list for action, given the extraordinary level of concern at the manner justice has been meted out in this case. The overturning of their convictions in 2005 on the issue of venue suggested justice for Cubans, even Cuban agents, might actually be possible in the United States, but with the counter-appeal and reinstatement of their convictions, it appeared US justice had also become deaf, and mute.

The campaign in support of the Five did not let up, and the Human Rights Working Group on Arbitrary Detention was joined by Amnesty International, twelve Nobel laureates, and thousands of ordinary citizens from around the world demanding their freedom.

Compare the treatment of the ten Russians only weeks ago who, like Gerardo, were also guilty of being “unregistered foreign agents” and who like Gerardo and the other four Cubans, did not obtain any classified information or threaten US national security. While the Cuban Five languished in solitary confinement for 18 months awaiting trial, and another ten years in prison since, the Russian Ten were waltzed off to Vienna before the days of their detention reached double digits, let alone anyone could say “double standard.”

Discussing the Russian swap, the Associated Press reported that “In describing how the swap unfolded, U.S. officials made clear that even before the arrests, Washington wanted not only to take down a spy network but to move beyond the provocative moment.”

So what message does that send to Cuba? The US wants to keep up the provocations? Keep its own spy networks in Cuba in place?

The public is not stupid. If the going rate is ten foreign agents for every four US spies, the Cuban Five should have returned home years ago - at least when James Cason and Co. left Havana.

So while the Russians walked, Obama talked..and the Five were balked. Let's hope some sanity returns before Gerardo is totally forked.

ENDS

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