Amnesty International defends the visitation rights of the Cuban 5

Unnecessarily punitive -- Amnesty International calls for temporary visas to
be granted to two wives of the `Cuban Five'

Amnesty International is once again urging the US authorities to stringently
review its decision to deny temporary visas to the wives of two Cuban
nationals serving long federal prison sentences in the USA, and, in the
absence of reasonable and conclusive evidence for continuing for them to be
withheld, to grant them temporary visitation visas so that they may visit
their husbands in the US.

The men, Gerardo Hernández and René Gonzáles were convicted in 2001 of
acting as unregistered agents of the Cuban government. Adriana Perez has not
been permitted to visit her husband Gerardo Hernández since his arrest in
1998, while Olga Salanueva, wife of René Gonzáles, and their eight-year-old
daughter, have not seen him since the eve of his trial in 2000.

Since 2002 the US government has denied the wives' applications for
temporary visas for different reasons relating to terrorism, espionage and
issues of national security. Yet, neither woman has faced charges in
connection with such claims, nor have their husbands been charged with, or
convicted of terrorism.

Adriana Perez and Olga Salanueva have made representations to Amnesty
International in which they deny being a security risk to the US, while
their husbands are currently held in `general population'
within prison which suggests that they are not considered to present a
security risk to the country.

Amnesty International is not in a position to judge the evidence on which
the government has made the decision to deny the women temporary visas for
visitation purposes. However the organization has repeatedly raised the
issue with the US authorities since 2002 because it believes that denying
the men visits from their wives (and in one case, also his child) is
unnecessarily punitive and contrary to standards for humane treatment of
prisoners and states'
obligations to protect family life.

The organization believes that this deprivation is particularly harsh given
the length of the men's sentences (René Gonzáles has been sentenced to 15
years' imprisonment and Gerardo Hernández to life
imprisonment) and the questions that have been raised about the fairness of
the men's convictions.

Background Information on challenges to the convictions of the Cuban Five In
May 2005, the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention (WGAD) issued an
opinion finding that the USA had failed to guarantee the Cuban Five a fair
trial. The WGAD opinion was based on information provided by the prisoners'
families, and included concerns about the trial venue, use of classified
evidence and the fact that the defendants were kept in solitary confinement
for months before trial, making access to evidence and communication with
their attorneys reportedly more difficult.

In August 2005, the convictions of all the Cuban Five were overturned by an
appeals court and a retrial was ordered, on the ground that pervasive
hostility toward pro-Castro Cubans in Miami (where the trial was held) was
prejudicial to the accused. This decision was reversed on 9 August 2006 by
the US Court of Appeals for the Eleventh Circuit on a finding that no such
prejudice had been shown in the selection of the trial jury.

AI has not reached a conclusion on the fairness of the proceedings, many of
which have still to be raised on direct appeal. However, it continues to
seek further information on this issue.