(EFE).- The former Costa Rican president and Nobel Peace Prize winner Oscar Arias demanded this Wednesday the release of the Cuban activist and journalist Lázaro Yuri Valle Rocasentenced to five years in prison last July for the crimes of “continuous enemy propaganda”.
“Those of us who live in democracy and freedom must raise our voices to ask for the release of Lázaro Yuri Valle Roca,” the former president said in a video message. Arias thus lent himself to being the “voice” of Valle Roca, within a campaign of the Casla Institutea Czech NGO that defends human rights.
“Noble goals cannot be achieved with ignoble means. That with the torture and imprisonment of the men and women who oppose the regime, the voices of those who have lost their freedom in their fight against the dictatorship will not be silenced,” he added.
“Cuba is not a different democracy nor has it followed its own path chosen by the Cuban people. Cuba is plain and simple a dictatorship. And that hurts those of us who love freedom”
“Cuba is not a different democracy nor has it followed its own path chosen by the Cuban people. Cuba is plain and simple a dictatorship. And that hurts those of us who love freedom,” said the former president.
Arias, who stressed that “political prisoners do not exist in democracies,” was president of Costa Rica twice: between 1986 and 1990 and, later, between 2006 and 2010.
Valle Roca was sentenced this July by the People’s Provincial Court of Havana along with three other dissidents, according to what the journalist’s wife, also an activist, Eralidis Frometa, reported on social networks.
#Cuba. Former President and Nobel Peace Prize Winner Oscar Arias @oariascr join the campaign @caslainstitute #releasechains and it will be the Voice of the Journalist Lazaro Yuri Valle Roca, Cuban Political Prisoner detained in June 2021. “CUBA is not a different democracy, Cuba is simply pic.twitter.com/d62xh4VsHF
— Tamara Suju (@TAMARA_SUJU) November 2, 2022
The court considered proven that the four sentenced, belonging to an NGO classified as “illicit”, distributed leaflets with an “approach contrary to the current social and political system in Cuba” and pro-democracy proclamations.
They were also sentenced for organizing a demonstration, filming it and posting it on social networks.
The case of Valle Roca, 60, was mentioned in the semi-annual report on Cuba by the Inter-American Press Association (IAPA) presented in April. Several NGOs have condemned the ruling.
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