The Case of the Cuban Five: Justice or Injustice?

Date/Time
Date(s) - 10/24/2013
6:00 pm - 7:30 pm

On September 8, 2006, the Miami Herald ran a front-page story reporting that ten local journalists had accepted money from Radio/TV Martí, a U.S. government-run broadcaster based in Miami.  The story set off a firestorm of recriminations within journalistic circles and became a key exhibit in the habeas corpus petition filed by five men convicted in 2001 of conspiring to act as unregistered agents of the Cuban government.  Aided by documents recently acquired through Freedom of Information Act requests (and soon to be augmented by a successful FOIA lawsuit filed against the U.S. State Department), the men, popularly known as the “Cuban Five,” assert that the government’s payments to dozens of Miami-area journalists, which totaled millions of dollars, inflamed anti-Cuba sentiment and denied them a fair and impartial trial.

On October 24, 2013, the Center for Media Law and Policy will join with UNC’s Institute for the Study of the Americas to host a panel discussion about the case, the ethical issues such payments raise for journalists and the implications for independent media everywhere.  Panelists include:

• Danny Glover, actor, producer and humanitarian (participating via Skype)
• Jane Kirtley, Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law at the University of Minnesota
• Gloria La Riva, coordinator of the National Committee to Free the Cuban Five
• William Norris, trial and appellate attorney for the Cuban Five
• Louis A. Pérez, Jr., J. Carlyle Sitterson Professor of History and Director of the Institute for the Study of the Americas
• Deborah Weissman, Reef Ivey II Distinguished Professor of Law at the UNC School of Law

The event will take place at 6:00 P.M. in the FedEx Global Education Center’s Nelson Mandela Auditorium and is free and open to the public.