Every year, the people celebrate the birthday of Gerardo Hernandez, one of the five anti-terrorist Cuban fighters unjustly held in U.S. prisons. “Cuba defends its sovereignty with honorable men like anti-terrorist fighter Gerardo Hernandez, who on his 46th birthday today is being unfairly held in a U.S. prison for warning Cuba of subversive plans hatched in south Florida,” Juan Miguel Diaz, chief of orthopedic services at Calixto Garcia Hospital, told Prensa Latina.

“Gerardo has been in jail since 1998, far from his relatives and his homeland, but his incarceration will not break this upright fighter,” said Diaz, who has served on several internationalist brigades in African countries.

A gathering at the hospital of doctors and nurses noted that Gerardo sentence is one of the harshest, and that Washington has repeatedly denied his wife Adriana Perez a visa to visit him.

He is one of the Cuban Five, also including Antonio Guerrero, Fernando Gonzalez, Ramon Labanino and Rene Gonzalez.

His birthday will be also marked today at the offices of the Union of Cuban Journalists (UPEC) in Havana, at a gathering including troubadours and poets, in coordination with the Free The Five Committee in California, the United States, according to organizer Yoandri Avila.