[Ppnews] Billboard company takes down ad for video that defends Cuban Five
Political Prisoner News
ppnews at freedomarchives.org
Thu Apr 12 18:20:46 EDT 2012
2 articles follow
The Miami Herald
Posted on Thu, Apr. 12, 2012
Billboard company takes down ad for video that defends Cuban spies
By Juan O. Tamayo
jtamayo at ElNuevoHerald.com
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/12/v-print/2745068/billboard-company-takes-down.html
A billboard in Little Havana advertising a video
that defends five notorious Cuban spies was taken
down just hours after it went up, amid anonymous
phone threats that a restaurant beneath the sign would be attacked.
Max Lesnick, a Radio Miami commentator who
regularly demands the release of the five spies
tried in Miami in 2001 and sentenced to long
prison terms, said the Alianza Martiana paid for
the advertisement. Lesnick is also one of the leaders of the Alianza.
The ad went up on a billboard on the roof of a
restaurant on the corner of 1st Street and 17th
Avenue SW around noon Wednesday and was already
down by about 7 p.m. , Lesnick said.
He and the Alianza were behind two previous ads
defending the spies. Exiles who criticized those
advertisements branded them as provocations and
asked if Miami Beach Jews would not force down
any billboards praising Adolf Hitler.
If the Jews do that, it would be wrong, too,
said Lesnick, a Jewish Cuban. We will put up our
billboard every chance we get because thats the right we have to free speech.
Lesnick said the Alianza Martiana paid $3,500 to
the Sarasota-based CBS Billboards for a 30-day
display of the ad. There was no immediate word on
whether the Alianza would get its money back, he told El Nuevo Herald.
The ad promoted a video, titled Freedom and
available on Radio Miamis web page, in which the
president of Cubas legislative National Assembly
of Peoples Power, Ricardo Alarcon, defends the
Cuban spies and demands their return home.
On the right side of the billboard was a large
5 the emblem of the Cuban governments
campaign to free the spies and to the left was
an image of an open hand over the words Give me Five, in English.
Lesnick said the ad originally said Obama Give
me Five, but CBS asked that the presidents name
be removed to avoid complications with U.S.
advertising regulations in an election year.
The billboards location in Little Havana on
the roof of a building that houses a Honduran
restaurant, La Casa de las Baleadas was the
only one available when the agreement was signed, he added.
This is simply an advertisement for a radio program, Lesnick claimed.
Restaurant owner Liliana Vasquez said she
received several anonymous phone threats
Wednesday, including one saying, Were going to
destroy your place. She called police, she said,
and a CBS employee visited her Thursday to apologize for the incident.
The five Cubans were convicted in 2001 of
conspiring to spy on South Floridas exile
community, the Pentagons U.S. Southern Command
in Miami and U.S. military airstrips in Tampa and the Florida Keys.
Four remain in prison, including Gerardo
Hernández, serving two life sentences on a charge
of murder conspiracy stemming from his role in
Cubas shoot down of two Miami-based civilian
airplanes in 1996, killing all four men aboard.
The fifth, Rene Gonzalez, completed his 13-year
prison sentence and was freed, but still must
serve three years of probation. A judge recently
gave him permission to go to Cuba for two weeks
to visit a brother reportedly dying from cancer.
Havana officials have confirmed the five are
intelligence agents, but claimed they were in
South Florida only to spy on radical Cuban exiles
who might be plotting terrorist attacks on the Cuban government.
Lesnick and the Alianza Martiana, named after
Cuban independence hero José Martí, have paid for
two previous advertisements in defense of the
Havana intelligence agents. Both drew strong
complaints from some Cuban exiles. One was taken
down quickly after it appeared on a billboard at
the Miami City Casino, on 37th Avenue and 4th
Street NW. The other appeared about two weeks
later on the pages of The Miami Herald and El Nuevo Herald.
© 2012 Miami Herald Media Company. All Rights Reserved.
http://www.miamiherald.com
Read more here:
http://www.miamiherald.com/2012/04/12/v-print/2745068/billboard-company-takes-down.html#storylink=cpy
***************************************
International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban 5 Announces
The attack on Ozzie Guillen shows the Cuban 5
could never receive a fair trial in Miami
The avalanche of criticism and complete
intolerance surrounding statements from Florida
Marlin's manager Ozzie Guillen in Time Magazine
certainly demonstrates how anyone who says any
comment even remotely favorable to Cuba will be
viciously attacked by right wing anti Cuban
circles in Miami. This is a clear example as to
why the Cuban 5, who infiltrated right-wing exile
groups in Miami in the mid-nineties to stop their
plans for violence against the island, and who
ended up serving lengthy sentences in U.S.
Prisons, couldn't have possibly received a fair trial in Miami.
Alicia Jrapko, of the International Committee for
the Freedom of the Cuban 5 stated, "Those groups
in Miami, who have made careers out of howling
about the lack of freedom of speech in Cuba, have
now fully exposed themselves in the case of Ozzie
Guillen. They have shown that it is they who will
not tolerate a person's opinion if it does not
line up with their backward way of thinking about
Cuba. If he could be so vilified and forced to
repent it shows there is no way the Cuban 5 could
receive a fair trial in that city."
Lawrence Wilkerson, Colonel, US Army (Retired)
and former chief of staff to Secretary of State
Colin Powell, wrote, "The only reason there is
such a hue and cry over Guillen's remarks is the
deadly stranglehold over Miami politics
maintained by hard-line Cuban-Americans. This
same deadly stranglehold ensured the Cuban Five
were railroaded to jail with sentences their
'crimes' did not in any way warrant."
The Cuban 5 were arrested in 1998 and although
they made no threats or injury to anyone and
there was no transfer of U.S. government
documents or classified material, the Cuban 5
were convicted on conspiracy to commit espionage
charges and sentenced originally to four life
sentences and 77 years in U.S. prisons.
On August 9, 2005, a three judge panel of the
11th Circuit Court of Appeals in Atlanta
commented on the political atmosphere that exists
in Miami: "Here, a new trial was mandated by the
perfect storm created when the surge of pervasive
community sentiment, and extensive publicity both
before and during the trial, merged with the
improper prosecutorial references." These
federal judges affirmed "the perception that
these groups could harm jurors that rendered a
verdict unfavorable to their views was palpable."
Activists from around the U.S. and international
representatives working for the freedom of the
Cuban 5 are gathering for five days of activities
in Washington, DC next week from April 17th to
the 21st. They will demand that President Obama
free the Cuban 5 who have been in U.S. prisons now for more than 13 years.
To see the full schedule of events and activities
plus a list of endorsers for 5 days for the Cuban 5 go to www.thecuban5.org
Freedom Archives
522 Valencia Street
San Francisco, CA 94110
415 863-9977
www.Freedomarchives.org
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