Belgium advocates for freedom of five Cuban anti-terrorists imprisoned in US

BRUSSELS, JUNE 29 (PL).— Belgian Foreign Minister Karel De Gucht asserted that his country fully supports a United Nations working group’s 2005 demand that the United States immediately release five Cuban anti-terrorists imprisoned in that country.

A statement from Katrien Demuynck, president of the Belgian committee and coordinator of the European campaign to Free the Five, reported that De Gucht said his country hopes to inform European Union delegates about the case.

According to the text, the foreign minister, in an interview with the deputy Katien Partyka, indicated that he was well aware of the case because in 2007 he received the wives of the antiterrorists who have been imprisoned in the U.S. for almost a decade.

De Gucht pointed out that the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Arrests clearly states that the arrests were in fact arbitrary.

In May of 2005, the group concluded that the imprisonment of Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino and René González violates the International covenant on Political and Civil Rights and demanded their immediate release.

Belgium supports the resolutions of UN organizations which have requested that member countries take into account the Work Group’s recommendations and implement appropriate measures to rectify the situation of persons arbitrarily deprived of their liberty, said the foreign minister.