A new mural has been completed on the International Wall in West Belfast to support the campaign for the release of the Miami Five.  The mural was commissioned by Cuba Support Group Belfast and was drawn by muralist Danny Devenny.

The Miami Five, are five men unjustly imprisoned by the United States government while infiltrating and gathering evidence on Miami Cuban groups who had carried out terrorist actions in Cuba.  Rather than acting on the evidence gathered by the men on the Miami-based terrorist groups, the US government arrested the five on espionage charges  and sentenced them to heavy sentences in different jails across the US.

A working group of the United Nations Commission on Human Rights said that ‘the trial did not take place in a climate of objectivity and impartiality’.  Amnesty International has described the treatment of the Five as ‘unnecessarily punitive and contrary both to standards for the humane treatment of prisoners and to states’ obligation to protect family life’. Eight international Nobel Prize winners and 110 MPs have written to the U.S. Attorney General calling for freedom for the Five.

One of the men, Rene Gonzalez, was released on probation in October 2011 but has to remain in the US for three years placing his life in grave risk from the groups he sought to expose.

The new mural aims to promote the campaign to release the Five and encourage greater efforts to have them set free.