Although Rene Gonzalez is currently not in the same situation as his four
brothers, he was also a victim of abuse for over 13 years.


This cruel situation had been denounced since 2003 by the late US attorney
Leonard Weinglass who passed away in March of last year.

After visits to Gerardo in Victorville, California and Tony, who Weinglass
represented, in Florence, Colorado, he publically revealed the additional
sufferings of these men.

After his meeting with Gerardo on March 17th of 2011, Weinglass wrote: “He
is under the most severe punishment in federal penitentiary known as the
“SHU”, a hole within a hole. He is in an extremely small cell where he
can barely take three steps without windows and with a very tiny vent
where the food is passed through.”

His clothes were taken away and can only wear underwear, a t-shirt and
without shoes.
“His cell is the only one that is lit 24 hours a day and the screaming of
other prisoners, mainly mental patients do not let him sleep.”

“He is not allowed printed documents and nothing to read. There are signs
in front of his cell warning that he cannot have any contact with any
other person. Gerardo is the only prisoner in confinement that is not
allowed to use the telephone…, until this moment he has not received any
correspondence, not even from his attorney(…)”.

Two days later on March 19th, Weinglass visited Tony and said the following:

“(…) Antonio welcomed me with shackles on his ankles and handcuffed”, and
which were only withdrawn during his visit. The halls were emptied during
his transfer. The visit room was in bad shape. The room was very small
with a thick glass between us, my associate and I barely fit into the room
together. There was a telephone we needed to share to communicate with
Tony. Antonio was closed in on his side and us on the other. We were
also imprisoned! There was not even a crack in which to pass on the
documents. We had to hand the documents to the guards that would take them
to Tony on the other side. I later decided just to show Tony the
documents through the thick window, it was too uncomfortable.” The
conditions of his visit were worse than Weinglass experienced with Mumia
Abu Jamal. “We protested but the guards refused to call on any prison
authority.”

This sensitive environment continues. A dangerous incident took place
while Mirtha Rodriguez, Antonio’s mother visited him in prison.

Miguel Alvarez, advisor to the President of the Cuban Parliament Ricardo
Alarcon and an expert on the case of the Cuban Five recalls:

“About two years ago on April 20th, when Mirtha was visiting her son,
there was a shootout and Tony and other inmates were removed and she
witnessed how wounded prisoners were being transferred.

He explained that a group of Nazi extremists, also prisoners were
celebrating Adolf Hitler’s birthday and they shot African American and
Latinos inmates when they refused to celebrate.

As a consequence, said Alvarez, some inmates were killed and some were
severely wounded showing the level of violence in the federal penitentiary.

Another information which is not directly linked to the case but serves as
a good evaluation of the risks of our comrades and the urgent need to
release the five anti terrorist fighters.
In a recent communiqué released by the US Customs and Immigration Office,
published in the official Granma daily indicate that among the Latin
American countries, Cubans heads the list with the largest number of
undocumented immigrates killed under ICE custody with 32 reported cases in
the last 8 years.
A little of common sense and humanity is enough to understand that the
lives of Gerardo, Fernando, Ramon and Tony are in danger.
Meanwhile, Rene is subjected to even more threats once he was released
from prison, living in the same place where individuals and organizations
that oppose him are based and which are currently walking the streets of
Miami with total impunity.