MADRID, Spain.- The Center for the Opening and Development of Latin America (CADAL) granted the Graciela Fernández Meijide Award for the defense of human rights by activist Cuban Librado Ricardo Linares García, former politician of the Group of 75, as the opponents convicted in the repressive wave of the Black Spring of 2003 in Cuba are known.
When making this recognition known, CADAL recalled that Linares García is the promoter of the Cuban Reflection Movement and that since 2011 he has brought together and organized groups of activists who resist the authoritarianism of the Cuban regime, through campaigns denouncing the violation of human rights on the island.
Likewise, he highlighted that due to his commitment to democratic values, he has been the victim of arbitrary arrests and detentions, interrogations, cruel and degrading treatment, confiscation of personal belongings, intimidation of his family, house searches, acts of repudiation, as well as prolonged illegal detentions.
After eight years in jail, sentenced during the Black Spring, and refusing forced exile, he was released on extra-criminal leave. Librado Ricardo Linares García continued his activism in Camajuaní, the town where he lives, in the province of Villa Clara.
In this first 2023 edition, CADAL also presented an award to GAM – Fundación Grupo de Apoyo Mutuo de Guatemala, a non-governmental organization founded by relatives of victims of forced disappearance during the internal armed conflict.
In this case, he pointed out that GAM has become one of the few spaces that has been able to bring together relatives of victims of the Guatemalan repressive system.
The jury, whose decision was unanimous, was made up of the Argentine writer and journalist Norma Morandini; the PhD in political science from the Complutense University of Madrid, Vicente Palermo; and the Argentine academic Rubén Chababo.
The Graciela Fernández Meijide Award, inspired by this Argentine activist, aims to recognize activism in defense of the human rights of individuals, groups or organizations in countries with authoritarian contexts or that have registered serious setbacks in terms of civil and political liberties.
