U.S. authorities should immediately release Juan Emilio Aboy, who was arrested May 30 in Miami by FBI and INS cops on charges of "spying" for Cuba. In a backhanded admission that they have no case, federal officials have decided not to present their "evidence" in a court of law, instead announcing that they plan to deport him on immigration charges requiring a "lesser level of proof." Such trampling of basic rights is an outrage all too familiar to many working people framed by the cops, and phony immigration court "hearings" are particularly well-known to workers threatened with deportation. Aboy is already being tried, convicted, and smeared by the big-business media, which repeats the assertions of U.S. agents as though they were facts.

The U.S. government and capitalist politicians are using the sensationalist publicity around the arrest of Aboy to slander the Cuban Revolution and to continue their campaign to justify the frame-up of five Cuban revolutionaries who are currently serving long sentences in federal prisons: René González, Antonio Guerrero, Gerardo Hernández, Fernando González, and Ramón Labañino.

Like Aboy, the five were accused of espionage for the Cuban government. Their real crime, however, was defending their country and revolution. As the five patriots have explained time and again, they were gathering information on the activities of counterrevolutionary groups that operate on U.S. soil with Washington’s knowledge and complicity and have a record of violent attacks on Cuba.

The U.S. authorities have handed out severe punishment to the five Cuban revolutionaries. During the more than two years the Cubans were in jail before the case came to trial, 17 months were spent in solitary confinement. No sooner did the court hand down harsh jail terms last December, than the prisoners were separated into federal prisons thousands of miles apart. They are now serving between 15 years and a double life sentence.

With this brutal treatment U.S. officials have sought to break the spirit of the five Cubans. To the same end, they recently arbitrarily prevented the wife and child of René González from traveling to the United States to visit him. Meanwhile, federal prosecutors are stalling defense lawyers’ efforts to prepare appeals against the sentencing by refusing to hand over papers needed by the defense.

In spite of this, the five patriots have not budged an inch from championing the Cuban Revolution, of which they themselves are a product. Several of them, for example, fought in Angola as volunteer combatants when Cuba helped that African nation defeat invasions by the South African apartheid regime’s army. Their revolutionary record and conduct under fire--including in the dungeons of U.S. imperialism--have won the respect of millions of their countrypeople and the support of Cuba’s revolutionary government.

Working people in this country have a stake in demanding the release of the five imprisoned patriots as well as Aboy. These frame-ups take place at a time when the wealthy U.S. rulers are seeking to expand the spying, harassment, and disruption operations of the FBI, INS, and other political police agencies. They do so in the name of fighting "terrorism" and "spying," but in fact they are preparing to use the police, courts, and prisons against working people and others who resist the escalating assault by the employer class on workers and farmers.

We should also demand an end to all the abusive restrictions on travel and visits by family members of the five, as well as the immediate release by the prosecution of documents vital to the preparation of the appeal. Free them now!
 
 
Related article:
FBI, INS frame up Cuban in Miami on ‘spy’ charges
Spouse of jailed Cuban denied visa by U.S. gov’t  
 
 
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