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BARISAL, Bangladesh — Some 600 high school students and others attended a public rally here Oct. 25 demanding freedom for Cuban revolutionaries Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, and Antonio Guerrero, imprisoned by Washington on trumped-up charges for more than 16 years. The event was initiated by Jahangir Khan, inset, chairperson of Free the Cuban Five Bangladesh. It was held outside a high school in a rural area near this port city on the Kurtankhola River in southern Bangladesh. “The U.S. government goes around the world presenting itself as a democracy, but that is not true, and we can see that in their unjust imprisonment of the Cuban Five,” said Khan. “We demand that they free our Cuban brothers now.” Other speakers included, above from left, Surendra Raj Gosai, president of the Cuba Solidarity Commitee of Nepal; Narayan Man Bijukchhe, chairman of the Nepal Workers and Peasants Party; Raymond Ferguson of the Asia-Pacific Solidarity Committee for the Peaceful Reunification of Korea; Miqdhad Ismail of the People’s United Front of Sri Lanka; Sheikh Tipu Sultan, member of Parliament, Workers Party of Bangladesh; Kazi Emdadul Hoque, president of a local district of the Awami League, a major party in Bangladesh; Martín Koppel, co-author and co-editor of The Cuban Five: Who They Are, Why They Were Framed, Why They Should Be Free, published by Pathfinder Press; and Ron Poulsen, representing the Australia-Cuba Friendship Society. Another theme of the meeting was defense of North Korea in face of U.S. military and economic pressures, addressed in particular by Khan and Ferguson. |
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| — RON POULSEN |