Granma international
May, 2004

AS is now routine, the U.S. State Department has once again denied entry visas to the wives of two of the five Cuban prisoners in U.S. jails, claiming that they are a threat to national security, according to information provided on the televised Roundtable program transmitted on May 24.

According to the new U.S. regulations, both Olga and Adriana, the wives of René and Gerardo, will have to wait 12 months before presenting their applications again. It was also reported that the mothers of Gerardo, René and Fernando, as well as Ramón’s father, applied for permission to visit their sons last year, finally obtained it, and some of them were able to see them.

The most recent news about René González was provided in a telephone interview by attorney Rafael Rodríguez, a member of the executive board of the Rosenberg Fund for Children in the United States. During a visit, he found René to be “very strong in spirit and very proud of the enormous demonstration by the Cuban people on May 14.”

Professor Rodolfo Dávalos, of the University of Havana’s Faculty of Law, commented that the last cycle of consular visits took place between April 2-23. The State Department has decided that those visits can only take place every three months. Professor Dávalos said that the Five are healthy, have the same spirit and optimism and are keeping up to date on activities undertaken on their behalf in Cuba and in the world.

In other news, the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples reported that 237 solidarity committees have been formed in 79 countries in an attempt to make the truth of their unjust sentences known.