They are imprisoned in the United States, serving a cumulative sentence of four life terms and 75 years imprisonment. They were convicted by the federal court of the United States in Miami on June 8, 2001, with the fabricated charge that they conspired to commit espionage against the United States. These five activists never engaged in espionage activities against the United States. They monitored anti-Cuban terrorist groups based in Miami that have launched attacks that have cost the lives of 3,000 or more Cubans.

The Five are worthy representatives of the Cuban people and their socialist revolution. Their ethics and courage are the result of a long history of revolutionary struggle and internationalist action. They are hostages of the US government, which demands that the working people of Cuba renounce their national independence and submit again to the sovereignty and exploitation of North American capital.

Through the struggle waged by the Five for their liberation, international solidarity is expanding.

The first part of this book is based on the recently published collection by Pathfinder International titled "The Cuban Five: Who they are, Why they were Framed, Why they should be Free" in the English language. This book includes selected articles that were first published in the newspaper "Militant" and concern the fabricated trial and the struggle for the liberation of Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero, Fernando González, and René González from US prisons. The "Militant" is a socialist workers' newspaper published in the United States that has been following this struggle for thirteen years.

The second part of the book includes letters and poems written by the Five, material that has been presented at public events by the José Martí Cultural Association. These texts come from the collection "El dulce abismo: Cartas de amor y esperanza de cinco familias cubanas" [The Sweet Abyss: Letters of Love and Hope from Five Cuban Families] published by Jose Marti editions in Cuba, to which we express our warm thanks.

We have added some biographical information that allows us to form an image of the character and personal history of each of these five internationalist fighters. [...]

(from the introductory note of the book)