MADRID, Spain.- This Monday, July 22, a thanksgiving mass will be held in the Hermitage of Charity in Miami to remember Cuban activists Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero on the 12th anniversary of their deaths. The ceremony, convened by the families of both opponents, will take place at 8:00 p.m.
“Join us to commemorate the lives and work of Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero on the 12th anniversary of the State crime,” he invited through the social network X Rosa María Payá, daughter of Oswaldo Payá and prominent Cuban opposition member.
Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero died on July 22, 2012 in a car accident on the Bayamo-Granma highway. However, the circumstances of their death have been the subject of complaints by their families, who claim that it was an attack organized by the Cuban government.
Since 2013, Rosa María Payá and Harold Cepero’s family have reported these murders to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR), providing documentation to support their accusations. In December 2021, the IACHR convened the first public hearing to analyze “case 9,416” concerning the deaths of Payá and Cepero.
In June 2023, the IACHR held the Cuban regime responsible for the deaths of both activists. In Admissibility and Merits Report No. 83/23 of Case 14.196, the agency concluded that “the Cuban State violated the rights to life, honor, and freedom of expression of both individuals.” The report identified sufficient evidence to conclude that state agents participated in the deaths of Payá and Cepero, considering the testimony of Ángel Carromero, driver of the vehicle in which the opponents were travelling.
Carromero, who currently resides in Spain, explained that from the moment they left Havana for Bayamo, they were followed by state vehicles. One of these vehicles hit the car they were travelling in. After the accident, in the hospital under military pressure, he was instructed to declare that it had been an accident.
Oswaldo Payá was a prominent Physics professor and Telecommunications engineer, founder of the Christian Liberation Movement in 1988 and known for the Varela Projecta citizen initiative to request a referendum in favour of the fundamental freedoms of Cubans. For his work, he was awarded the 2002 Sakharov Prize of the European Parliament for Freedom of Thought and received an honorary degree of Doctor of Laws from Columbia University, New York. In addition, he was nominated five times for the Nobel Peace Prize.
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