Aleida Guevara and Peter Capaldi are the latest personalities to add their support to Voices for the Five
Voices for the Five, the recently launched website for people around the world to raise their voices against the unjust imprisonment of five Cuban citizens in the US, is growing dramatically in scale and breadth.
Nothing shows that more than today’s news that endorsement for the campaign and an International Commission into the case has come from Aleida Guevara, daughter of the iconic revolutionary leader Che Guevara, and from Peter Capaldi, the British actor soon to take over the role of Doctor Who, the BBC science-fiction drama which has become a television hit in many countries across the globe.
Their endorsement comes as the number of people registering their voice calling for the release of the Five, imprisoned in US jails for more than 15 years, has reached more than 2,000 less than a month after the campaign launch. Those “voices for the five” can be seen on the innovative new website. Also on the site are details of the International Commission of Inquiry into the case – a two day international event hosted at the Law Society in London on 7 and 8 March next year.
The Five were arrested and imprisoned in the US 15 years ago. Their only crime was to be monitoring various expatriate groups in the US which have been behind a sustained campaign of terrorism against the Caribbean island for decades.
In a message uploaded to the site, Aleida Guevara writes:
“Freedom is a right that we demand for our comrades because they are anti-terrorist fighters and heroes of a nation that respects life and gives solidarity. They represent the best of my people, and therefore must return.”
Award winning actor, Peter Capaldi, known in Britian for his role as Malcolm Tucker in the BBC comedy satire series The Thick of It and spin-off film In the Loop, joins a growing number of cultural figures endorsing the Commission into the case, which promises to be a major gathering in London in March next year.
Other recent supporters from the artistic and cultural world include eminent Serbian film director Emir Kusturica; Belgian actor Dick Tuypens; Cuban-American director Andres Gomez; international director at the Royal Court Theatre in London, Elyse Dodgson; and many more.
They join distinguished cultural figures whose endorsement helped launch the voices campaign, such as Nobel laureate Gunter Grass, novelist John Le Carre; actor and Oscar-winning screen writer Emma Thompson; Pulitzer Prize winner Alice Walker; and a host of others.
These prominent endorsers are raising the profile of the campaign and encouraging very many more, from a growing list of countries to raise their voice for the Five.
Every voices matters. It is political pressure that will be central to moving the US authorities to end this injustice. That requires global public opinion being brought to bear.
So the campaign is stepping up efforts to get people to raise their voices for justice and is asking everyone who has already done so to ask people they know to do the same.
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