Alarcon: US Treatment of the Cuban Five is "Terrorist" 

The U.S. position with the five Cuban prisoners in its jails for nearly 12 years is a policy that promotes terrorism, said President of the Cuban Parliament Ricardo Alarcon.

While taking part in the debates of the Foreign Releations Committee of the National Assembly of People's Power, Alarcon urged that more be done to attain the release of Gerardo Hernandez, Ramon Labañino, Fernando Gonzalez, Antonio Guerrero and René González.

Alarcon criticized the silence and the manipulation of most important media outlets regarding the Cuban Five, as the five Cubans arrested on September 12, 1998 are kknown internationally.

He said that in a recent visit to Europe he had spoken of his antiterrorist countrymen in all the meetings with the press and in this regard nothing was published, he stressed.

To counteract this situation, he recommended, we must use alternative means of communication, the facilities offered by new information technologies, and all avenues of exchange between people.

Alarcon again denounced the US attitude with regard to the health of Gerardo, who suffers from physical problems and is punished in a tiny solitary confinement cell without having committed any act of indiscipline.

Such a regime is equivalent to physical and psychological torture, said Alarcon after going into great detail about the conditions of the jail where temperatures are beyond 35  C and the space is two meters long by one wide.

He recalled that Gerardo apparently has problems with a bacteria circulating among the prison population as well as high blood pressure, according to the doctor who examined him on 20 July after a request made several months ago.

He said that the Cuban Parliament will issue an official condemnation at the beginning of the plenary session next Sunday if this situation persists.

Gerardo's wife, Adriana Perez, along with Rene's, Olga Salanueva, who were invited to the debates, thanked the deputies for their actions in favour of the release of their husbands and the other prisoners.

PL Translation Staff

Other very important issues were the rejection of the blockade imposed by Washington on the Caribbean nation and dealing with media campaigns against Cuba orchestrated from the imperial circles of the Western powers.

In Havana Convention Palace, and prior to the fifth session of the seventh legislature of Parliament, parliamentarians exchanged views on the main tasks carried out from January to June.

Among these, the attention to 106 delegates from 46 countries was highlighted, of which 32 were invited by the People's National Assembly and 74 by other agencies, institutions, and organizations.

During that period Cuban deputies met with 412 individuals; 157 of them were parliamentarians, and eight presidents and four vice-presidents of legislative bodies were welcomed here.

According to official figures, the actions of solidarity with Cuba made by legislators  and heads of local government bodies came from 79 nations.

The head of the International Relations Department of the Communist Party Central Committee, Jorge Martí, encouraged them to work with greater intensity in favor of Cuban's cause on the world stages.

Source: PL