By Rebecca Goldfine,Staff Writer

NORWAY – Two activists fighting for the release of five Cuban men they say have been wrongly imprisoned by the U.S. government will visit Norway on Saturday.

Bernie Dwyer, who is an Irish reporter working in Cuba, and the Rev. Geoffrey Bottoms, an English priest, are outspoken defendants of a group of men known as the Cuban Five, who received either life or lengthy sentences in 2001 on espionage charges.

The visitors will speak at 11 a.m. in Norway Memorial Library, where they will show Dwyer’s documentary, “Mission Against Terror,” and lead a discussion on the Cubans’ case.

Dr. Tom Whitney is hosting the two visitors, as well as helping organize the event.

Whitney, a local pediatrician, is part of a group called Let Cuba Live, a Maine organization dedicated to helping Cuba while educating people about the U.S.’s economic blockade and political policies on the country, according to its Web site, www.letcubalive.org.

Dwyer and Bottoms are in the United States now because the case against the five Cuban men has been appealed and will be heard before an Atlanta court Tuesday. They plan to attend the appeals hearing, Whitney said.

Supporters of the Cuban men argue that the men traveled to Florida to monitor militant terrorists groups that had been staging attacks for more than 40 years against Cuba.

In 1998, the FBI arrested the men. Advocates say the men were in Florida to protect their country and were wrongfully imprisoned. Whitney said the case has sparked an international uproar, but has largely been ignored by U.S. media. He said the presentation planned in Norway is “a drop in the bucket. We do what we can. … The world is not going to turn around because (Dwyer and Bottoms) are here in Maine.”

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