TORONTO — Two hundred people packed the United Steelworkers hall here April 20 to hear Adriana Pérez (above), wife of Gerardo Hernández, one of the Cuban Five (see box on this page). Toronto Cuban Consul General Javier Dómokos Ruiz also spoke and messages from Steelworkers National Director Ken Neumann and New Democratic Party Member of Parliament Olivia Chow were read at the event, which was organized by the USW and Friends of the Cuban Five. The previous week Pérez addressed the April 16-18 Steelworkers convention in Vancouver where 650 delegates unanimously passed a resolution calling on U.S. President Barack Obama to free the Cuban Five.

Pérez called on participants at the April 20 meeting to build a large contingent from Canada to participate in the June 1 international “free the Cuban Five” demonstration in Washington, D.C. The Five “have not for a single second abandoned their certainty of returning to Cuba,” Pérez said, pointing to their confidence that a “jury of millions” would eventually win their freedom.

—JOHN STEELE