NEW YORK—Chanting “Freedom for the Five! Visas for their wives!” about 50 people joined a spirited picket line outside the Federal Building in lower Manhattan June 8. The protest was part of the June 6-8 international actions called to demand release of the Cuban Five.

Five Cuban revolutionaries—René González, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, and Gerardo Hernández—have been unjustly held in U.S. jails for more than a decade. They were gathering information for the Cuban government about rightist groups in south Florida who have carried out armed attacks against Cuba with Washington’s complicity.

The five were arrested in 1998 in Miami and convicted in a 2001 frame-up trial on charges of “conspiracy to commit espionage” and in the case of Hernández, “conspiracy to commit murder.” Olga Salanueva and Adriana Pérez, wives of René González and Gerardo Hernández respectively, have been denied entry into the United States to visit their husbands.

Attorneys for the Cuban Five have filed an appeal with the Supreme Court. Twelve friend-of-the-court briefs were also filed, the largest ever before the court.

—SAM MANUEL