NEW YORK — Supporters of the Cuban Five took their case to the People’s Climate March here Sept. 21, winning new support for the fight to win their freedom. (See box below.)

“A lot of people saw our banner,” Nalda Vigezzi, a co-chair of the National Network on Cuba and a member of the International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5, said in a phone interview Sept. 30. “We saw a lot of people we know, who came and marched with us for a while. We passed out leaflets in the march, but also to people on the sidelines. It was a phenomenal response,” Vigezzi said. “It was a two sided flyer. One side explained how Cuba is an example of sustainable agriculture. The other had the facts on the Cuban Five.

“A lot of people know about the Cuban Five. But it was most rewarding to hand it out to people who did not know about the case and know they were going to read about it,” she said. “Some people said they had been to Cuba or ‘I want to go to Cuba’ or ‘I’m planning to go with my college.’ We had more than 2,000 flyers and we gave them all out.”

IFCO/Pastors for Peace, a group that opposes the U.S. embargo of Cuba, also had a contingent and the two groups managed to find each other in the sea of people and march together.