Havana Cuba. – “Our loved ones must be released immediately. We Cubans are a people that suffers and yearns for freedom”, 62 mothers, fathers and relatives of political prisoners of the July 11, 2021 (J11) and other representatives of civil society, in a letter addressed to all the presidents attending the IX Summit of the Americas.
For the signatories, 11J is an “unforgettable date” in which Cubans cried out for freedom and were met with repression by the regime: brutal beatings, kidnappings, arrests and trials with excessive sentences. Currently in Cuba there are more than 1,000 political prisoners, most of them after 11J.
“The relatives have lived this path of suffering. Children, wives, mothers, fathers, brothers, accompanying our loved ones with pain, also suffering threats and in some cases arrests and jail.”
“All this, just to demand justice and freedom for our people, unjustly imprisoned. The repression has not been, nor will it be a solution to the hardships that our people endure”, they state in the letter.
The result was the pressure exerted by different international organizations, especially by the Committee Against Torture and the Committee on the Rights of the Child, as well as strong criticism of Cuba from the press and international doplomacy. This caused that, during the last month, the sentences have been decreasing in term.
However, the letter notes that “the pressure from the European Union is still lukewarm.”
“We expose our request for the immediate release of our loved ones,” say the signatories in the context of the IX Summit of the Americas, which began on June 6 in Los Angeles, United States.
This Monday, a senior US official told EFE that his country confirmed the non-invitation of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela to the Summit due to the lack of democracy and violations of the rights of those three regimes.
Various representatives of organizations based mainly in exile will participate on behalf of Cuban (independent) civil society. During the last week, the regime prevented four Cubans residing on the island who were invited to the event from leaving the country. They are the activists Saily González and Aimara Peña, and the independent journalists María Matienzo and Henry Constantín.
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