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Alarcon Asks Leftist Media to Unite in the Fight for Cuban Five.

CUBA, May 3, 2011.- President of the Cuban Parliament Ricardo Alarcon issued a call this Tuesday asking the “revolutionary media” to come together in the fight for just causes like that of the five Cuban antiterrorist fighters unfairly imprisoned in the US.

Alarcon said uniting efforts against the current media wall and silence about issues opposing the interests of capitalist nations is a duty of the revolutionary media.

The Cuban Parliament president spoke at the closing of a panel about the fight for the truth regarding the case of the Cuban Five.

Organized by the Association of Cuban Journalists (UPEC) in Havana, the panel was attended by Americans Gloria de la Riva, with the US Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five, and Alicia Jrapko, Coordinator of the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five; among other personalities.

In reference to the establishment by the United Nations of May 3 as the World Day for the Freedom of Speech, Alarcon said that freedom actually means protecting the points of view and interests of the bourgeois liberal press and not that of Third World countries and the poor.

De la Riva talked about her experience with the San Francisco Chronicle, where she unsuccessfully tried to have a story about the legal situation of Gerardo Hernandez, Rene Gonzalez, Ramon Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and Rene Gonzalez, published.

“The director said it was not a topic of local interest,” said De la Riva and added that journalists with Miami-based media Pablo Alfonso and Wilfredo Cancio Isla received from the US Government –between 1999 and 2007- some $272,000 and $21,000 each, to publish false articles about the Cuban Five, during the trial days.

Alicia Jrapko also spoke about the difficulties encountered by the solidarity-with-Cuban movement, regarding the Cuban Five’s case, due to the lack of knowledge about the topic.

Meanwhile, Andres Gomez, coordinator of the Antonio Maceo Brigade and writer for Radio Miami also attending the meeting encouraged participants to look for new ideas to break the silence of the US media about the case.

The panel was moderated by Jose Dos Santos with the Latin American Federation of Journalists.  (Cubaminrex-Cuban News Agency)