Fwd: Look at the World Through Women's Eyes/Women & Cuba film series
Date: Wed, 14 Feb 2007

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LOOK AT THE WORLD THROUGH WOMEN'S EYES
IS BACK for 2007!
SUNDAY AFTERNOON MATINEES AT 4 PM FOR ONE SHOWING ONLY

Central Cinema
21st & Union Street in The Central District of Seattle
Movie and Bistro with food, drinks, discussion and community!

Sunday, March 11 at 4 PM SALUD! Health! (Cuba, 2006, 93 Minutes)

in honor of International Women's Day!!

with GUEST SPEAKERS:
Congressperson Jim McDermott (invited)
Shad Reinstein, Acupuncturist and Cuba Activist

A powerful film about conflicting values and the urgency of ensuring the universal right to health care, what puts Cuba on the map is the quest for global health. For those committed to health in rich and poor nations alike, SALUD! explores the curious case of Cuba, a cash-strapped country with what the BBC calls "one of the world's best health systems."

And for 40 years, Cuba's taken it on the road -- their doctors in demand by other struggling nations. SALUD! accompanies some of the 28,000 Cuban health professionals -- the vast majority of Cuban doctors are women -- now serving in 68 countries. Through their personal stories, and those of an array of young medical students, SALUD! invites us to explore new paths to making health a global birthright, wiping out the diseases of poverty.

Filmed in Cuba, South Africa, The Gambia, Honduras and Venezuela, the cameras of SALUD! reveal the human dimension of the global health crisis and the complex challenges faced by developing nations struggling to provide health care.

Directed and produced by Connie Field Academy Award nominee (The Life & Times of Rosie the Riveter, Freedom on My Mind) and co-produced by Gail Reed. Cinematography by Academy Award nominee Vicente Franco.

English/Spanish

SALUD! is an excellent, accurate and deeply moving portrayal of a heathcare system designed to keep people healthy, rather than the "sickcare"system that currently exists in the United States.
-- Jocelyn Elders, MD, former US Surgeon General

I salute SALUD! for teaching us how much we can learn not just about -- but from -- Cuba.
-- Julian Bond, Chairman of the Board, National Association for the Advancement of Colored People (NAACP)

SALUD! shows us that, regardless of economic constraints, health for all is possible..."
-- Dr Georges Benjamin, Executive Director, American Public Health Association

$5.00 Donation at the door

Sponsored by the US Women & Cuba Collaboration (www.womenandcuba.org)

with the support of ---

Cedar River Clinics
GIRE
King County Coalition Against Domestic Violence
Moms Acting Up
National Asian Pacific American Women's Forum -- Seattle Chapter
Reclaim the Media
Seattle NOW Chapter
Seattle Women's Human Rights Network
Welfare Rights Organizing Coalition

MOVIE Information:
www.central-cinema.com or call 206/720-0522

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Fwd: International Campaign for Adriana Perez and Olga Salanueva - please distribute

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International Campaign for the Right of two Cuba Women

to Visit their Husbands Imprisoned in the United States

Since September 1998, five Cubans have been suffering unjust sentences in U.S. prisons. The five men were monitoring Miami-based terrorist organizations of Cuban-American origin. For more than four decades, these organizations have perpetrated hundreds of terrorist attacks resulting in the death and disability of 5000 Cuban citizens.

The Five were collectively sentenced to four life sentences plus 74 years. Furthermore, another cruel punishment has been added to their family members, obstructing the visits of mothers, wives and children of the Five.

On average, these prisoners receive family visits once a year. This violation of the prisoners' rights is even more severe for two of the Five: Rene Gonzalez and Gerardo Hernandez, whose wives the U.S. government has consistently denied visitation rights.

Olga Salanueva, wife of Rene has not been able to visit her husband for 6 years. Adriana Perez wife of Gerardo has not been able to visit him since he was arrested. Olga and Adriana are both model citizens and pose no threat to the U.S.

Both women have requested visas on 7 occasions and every single time, the United States government has denied them.

The United States government has no reason to deny these families the right to see each other.

In the English edition of the book "Letters of Love and Hope" that includes correspondence between the Five, their wives and their children, Alice Walker, the North American writer tells us:

"The treatment they have received is shameful. The silence around this treatment even more so. Where are the Congress members, the Senators and representatives, we should be able to rely on in cases such as this? People with the courage to insist that prisoners not be subjected to torture? That their children not be denied access to them, that their wives and mothers not be driven to despair by the many failed attempts they make to see their wrongly, in this case incarcerated kin."

Mendocino , California, July 24, 2004

We make a call to all the women of the world to rise up against this tremendous injustice and to demonstrate by all means possible our solidarity with them and to demand that the U.S. government must immediately grant visas so that they can visit their husbands in prison.

In this battle thousands of men and women join us in solidarity, including 9 Nobel Prize winners. Most recently, on January 17, 2007, Amnesty International published a public statement about this issue.

We make a call to all women world-wide to organize a strong International Campaign between March 8^th and May 14^th, to coincide with International Women's Day and Mother's Day.

We propose the following:

To incorporate the demand for the granting of the visas to Adriana and Olga into all actions organized on International Women's Day;

To ask female journalists and other writers to mention the violations that these two Cuban women are suffering;

To send messages to Condoleezza Rice demanding the granting of visas;

To deliver protest letters to U.S. Consulate personnel throughout Latin America and Europe; and

To organize Colloquiums that among other themes, raise the issue of these flagrant violations as a new form of torture of prisoners and expose these two women as victims of the violations.

INTERNATIONAL SOLIDARITY WITH ADRIANA PEREZ AND OLGA SALANUEVA!

WE DEMAND THE IMMEDIATE GRANTING OF VISAS FOR BOTH WIVES!

STOP THE VIOLATIONS OF VISITATION RIGHTS OF THE FAMILY OF THE FIVE!

FREE THE CUBAN FIVE NOW!

ALL THE WOMEN OF THE WORLD, RISE UP FOR THESE TWO WOMEN!

TOGETHER WE CAN ACHIEVE OUR GOAL!

International Committee for the Freedom of the Cuban Five

Friends and committees of 10 countries have already joined this campaign including: Argentina, Bolivia, Peru, United States, Spain, Italy, Germany, Switzerland, Sweden, and Ukraine.

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