Cuba Support Group Ireland is pleased to announce that it is a sponsor of the International Commission of Enquiry into the case of the Miami Five, to be held in London next month.

Proceedings will get under way on Friday, 7 March at The Law Society, 113 Chancery Lane, London WC2A 1PL. A full list of events is available on the Voices for the Five website here: http://www.voicesforthefive.com/downloads/Commission-Sessions.pdf

Cuba Support group Ireland will be represented by a 4 person delegation comprising National coordinator, Belfast coordinator , Limerick coordinator and National treasurer.

Our first public event in support of the Five took place outside the US Embassy in Dublin on the eve of the invasion of Iraq. That war, one of the longest in the modern era, is over, but the Five are still not free.

Since establishing the Irish campaign for the Miami Five in 2002, CSGI has been successful in building support in Ireland for the five Cuban men “arbitrarily detained” in the USA.  The struggle continues with the Free the Cuban Five campaign.

“Arbitrary detention” was the finding of a 2005 investigation conducted by the highest level UN committee responsible for adjudicating on such matters, a committee that called on the US government to rectify their situation.  Nothing happened.

50 members of Dáil Éireann submitted a brief to the US Supreme Court in 2009 in support of their appeal. The court responded by refusing to even hear the appeal, extinguishing the last legal remedy available.

The US Judicial System stands accused of presiding over a system of kangaroo courts, swayed by public opinion, unable to distinguish between paid-for “journalism” and reality and resolutely impervious to the damage being done to its own reputation internationally. It is a system of justice simply not fit for purpose.

Amnesty International have called their treatment “a form of torture”.

The US Government was even caught acting contrary to the US Constitution in running stories in the Miami press on the case during the trial and specifically prejudicial to the proceedings, using paid mercenaries employed as journalists in many of the major Miami-based newspapers, radio and TV broadcasters.  This is explicitly forbidden by the US Constitution.  No one was ever held to account for this crime, even the US Supreme Court chose to brush it under the carpet.

So it is that an International Commission of Jurists, drawn from across the globe, will examine the evidence presented in the original case together with the startling new evidence (including prejudicial propagandising by the US Government) amassed in the intervening 16 years and pronounce on its findings.

There is only one thing sure: its deliberations, unlike those of the US Judicial system, will have the benefit of objectivity.

If you are unable to attend the proceedings (and there are still tickest available for some of the events) you will be able to follow them live on twitter @cubasupport