spherical cows

So, yesterday the US called for Cuba to release its political prisoners.

Also yesterday, the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five announced that they had documents that show that the Broadcasting Board of Directors (a federal agency) paid journalists large sums of money during the trial. These journalists went on to report heavily against the Cuban Five, including reporting on statements that had been made that the jury weren't supposed to hear, as they were procedural and possibly prejudicial. (The jury for the Cuban Five trial was never sequestered, meaning that they had access to this information the whole time.)

I don't have a Washington Post link for you for that. Or a New York Times link. So far it's been covered in Cuban papers, CubaHeadlines.com, and...nowhere else.

I could talk about the Cuban Five, and the injustices that were done to them, but I've already done that here (they're number 4). There are a couple things I didn't mention in that post, though, like the fact that the trial was held in Miami (I dare you to find a location more biased against supporters of the Cuban government - and did I mention that's where Brothers to the Rescue is based?), that they were never sequestered, and how essentially the entire setup of the trial was inherently biased against the Five?

I could talk about how the lack of press coverage is another sign of an incredibly overarching and depressing fact - that Americans just plain don't care about Cuba, even though the US is everywhere in Cuba, especially in its effects, and especially in the effects of the embargo (see #3 in that post), but I can feel my blood pressure rising even now.

I usually cut for posts this long. For that matter, I usually friends-lock pretty much everything. Except I happen to think this is incredibly important, and, quite frankly, most people aren't going to get this information anywhere else. So please, if you're reading this, consider linking to the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five's page, or even this post, because like I said: Nobody's going to get this information anywhere else.

The US is calling for Cuba to release its political prisoners. I only think it's fair if we demand the same of ourselves.