The Militant (logo)  
   Vol. 67/No. 10           March 31, 2003  
 
 
Cuban revolutionary in U.S. jail
is deprived of rights in ‘hole’
(front page)
 
BY PAUL PEDERSON  
Gerardo Hernández, one of five Cuban revolutionaries imprisoned in U.S. jails, is undergoing the strictest form of isolation in what is called "the Box" in the federal prison at Lompoc, California.

Hernández has been in the "hole" since February 28. It was around the same time hat the other four Cuban patriots convicted along with Hernández were thrown in solitary confinement without any reason given by prison authorities. The five men are being held in five different prisons thousands of miles apart where they are serving sentences ranging from 15 years to life. Hernández is serving a double-life sentence.

After repeated requests to Assistant U.S. Attorney Caroline Heck Miller’s office in Florida, Hernández’ attorney, Leonard Weinglass, was granted permission to visit his client on March 16. According to Weinglass, Hernández is confined to "the Box" within the Special Housing Unit--a hole within the "hole"-- and witnessed the torture he is undergoing.

Hernández is confined 24 hours a day to a cell with no windows, and only a slot in the metal door through which food is passed. The cell is only big enough for him to walk three steps, with a toilet and a concrete bed with a thin pad.

Prison authorities have taken his clothes from him forcing him to wear just underpants and a shirt. The light in his cell remains switched on 24 hours a day. Despite his protestations he has been denied his mail and reading material. The Cuban revolutionary has unsuccessfully tried to register a complaint under the prison’s established procedures but has been told that there are no complaint forms available.

The five--Antonio Guerrero, Ramón Labańino, René González, Fernando González, and Hernández--were framed up and convicted in a U.S. federal court in June 2001. They were in the United States to collect information on the activities of counterrevolutionary groups that have a history of launching violent attacks on Cuba from U.S. soil.

Unable to prove any illegal acts by the five men, the federal government pushed through convictions on a series of conspiracy charges, including conspiracy to act as an unregistered agent of a foreign power, to commit espionage, and to commit murder.

Leonard Weinglass has condemned the action by prison authorities, and the treatment of Hernández, as "completely unjustified." Noting that the five have been "model prisoners," Weinglass has urged supporters of the five men to write the Federal Bureau of Prisons and demand their immediate release from solitary confinement. Messages demanding the five be released from solitary confinement should be sent to Kathleen Hawk Sawyer, Director of the Federal Bureau of Prisons, 320 First St., NW, Washington, D.C. 20534; tel: 202-307-3198; fax: 202-514-6620; e-mail: webmaster@bop.gov  
 
 
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