Media bias central to new appeal
by Cuban 5

Reporters for big media outlets owned by corporate giants are nevertheless supposedly independent and unbiased. What happens if the U.S. government is also paying them while their articles and broadcasts inflame the atmosphere against defendants during a high-profile political trial?

This question has become a major issue in the case of the Cuban Five, political prisoners who have been incarcerated since 1998 in U.S. jails. Gerardo Hernández, Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labañino, Fernando González and René González are imprisoned for the so-called “crime” of defending Cuba and its people against assaults by ultra-right wing organizations.

The five anti-terrorist heroes were trying to protect their country from acts of violence that were being planned, funded and launched from the U.S. They were falsely charged with espionage, tried and convicted in 2001. The U.S. courts treated them brutally, sentencing Guerrero and Labañino to life terms, while giving Hernández two life sentences, to be served consecutively.

An international campaign to “Free the Cuban 5” resulted in the reduction of life sentences for Guerrero and Labañino in 2009. However, Hernández’s prison term was not shortened. Moreover, he has not been able to see his spouse, Adriana Pérez, during the entire period of his incarceration. The U.S. government has denied her a visa to enable her to visit him.

As of June 14, Hernández’s attorneys began legal actions, which seek a new trial for him.

According to noted human rights attorney Leonard Weinglass, the current motion focuses on “constitutional violations which had not been part of the previous appeal and a claim of actual innocence.”

In 2005, a unanimous three-judge panel of the 11th Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the Cuban Five’s convictions and ordered a new trial to be held outside Miami. The ruling said, in part, “Here, a new trial was mandated by the perfect storm created when the surge of pervasive community sentiment, and extensive publicity both before and during the trial, merged with the improper prosecutorial references.”

Although this decision was later overturned by the full 11th Circuit Court of Appeals, its intent is echoed by the revelation, backed up by documentation, that Spanish-language reporters working for Miami media were on the U.S. government’s payroll during the original trial of the Cuban Five.

It is no wonder that news coverage of the Cuban Five’s Miami trial was blatantly unfair and hostile towards the defendants.

This new information and legal thrust gives supporters of the Cuban Five a new avenue to publicize the tremendous injustice done to them and their families. Additionally, it further exposes U.S. imperialist policy, which extends back more than 50 years, to use warfare of all types to destroy Cuban socialism.