MADRID, Spain.- The Lady in White and Cuban political prisoner Sayli Navarro Álvarez was nominated by the Center for the Opening and Development of Latin America (CADAL) for the International Award for Courage and Responsibility, awarded by the Czech organization Forum 2000, founded by playwright and human rights defender Vaclav Havel (1936-2011).
“For more than ten years, Sayli Navarro has responded to the call of the organization to which she belongs, the Ladies in White, to try every Sunday to go to mass at her local Catholic church and ask for the release of political prisoners. Cubans”, stressed CADAL from its website when announcing the nomination.
He also recalled that the young woman refuses to be released in exchange for forced exile from the Island.
Sayli Navarro, daughter of the opponent, promoter of Cuba Decide and president of the “Pedro Luis Boitel” Party for Democracy, Félix Navarro Rodríguez, was arrested along with her father in Perico, Matanzas province, in the context of the historic anti-government protests of the July 11 and 12, 2021 (11J).
Since the appeal trial in April last year, Sayli has been held in the prison known as Bellotex. Sentenced by the Jovellanos Court, Saylí Navarro is serving a sentence of eight years in prison and her father nine of hers, in the Agüica prison.
Among the 47 people nominated for the International Award for Courage and Responsibility are —also Cubans— the opponent Manuel Cuesta Morúa and the political prisoners Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, María Cristina Garrido and José Daniel Ferrer.
In the international arena, the nominees are the President of Ukraine, Volodímir Zelenski; Russian opposition leaders Alexei Navalny, Ilya Yashin and Alexei Gorinov; American historian Timothy D. Snyder; the Nicaraguan ecclesiastic Rolando José Álvarez Lagos; and the Venezuelan politician María Corina Machado.
