Rome Italy. – This February 15, Deputy Mariela Castro Espín begins a tour of events in Italy, organized by the Italy-Cuba National Friendship Association, the operational arm of the Cuban Embassy in that country.
The first stop will be in Milan to talk about “family rights and gender issues”. On Thursday, February 16, he will be in Genoa, at an event sponsored by the Italian National Association of Partisans (ANPI), the network of left-wing cultural centers ARCI, and Arcigay, an association dedicated to promoting the rights of the LGBTQ+ communityto also talk about “human rights, family and the persistent US economic blockade.”
On Friday, February 17, she will be at the University of Turin, where she will be received in her role as director of the Island’s National Center for Sexual Education (CENESEX) to present the new Family Code. On February 20 in Florence, on 21 in Rome, on 22 in Pescara and on 24-25 in Catanzaro and Florence (see calendar here). These last two cities are located in the Calabria region, where the regional government closed an agreement with the Castro regime to bring more than 500 doctors.
“It is an attempt to attack Italian democracy,” denounced the Cuban diaspora through a statement signed by Sayde Chaling Chong and Yusil Gascón, from the European Ibero-American Alliance against Communism; and by Sara Sánchez, president of the European-Cuban Council, a coalition of dissidents in Europe for the freedom of the island.
Mariela Castro’s presence in Italy “is an unprecedented mockery. The dictator’s daughter [Raúl Castro] intends to once again recycle a one-party political system, which pursues freedom of expression and which currently has more than 1,000 political prisoners,” read the statement of the Cuban dissidents in Europe.
Cubans residing in Italy such as Habana de La Torre, also a member of the European-Cuban Council, denounced that it is paradoxical to read the issues that Castro Espín will address, considering the curriculum of terror of the 63 years of the communist regime. He remembered that since the protests of July 2021 The regime has detained more than 5,000 citizens and, according to the latest report by the organization Prisoners Defenders, currently has 1,157 political prisoners.
In addition, the daughter of the tyrant Raúl Castro claims to speak of “family” in Italy when she comes from a country where thousands of families have been destroyed as victims of exodus and political persecution. She intends to talk about the rights of the LGBTIQ + community as a representative of a regime criticized for creating the Military Production Support Units (UMAP), concentration camps where homosexuals were interned and sentenced to forced labor.
In this regard, the activist for the freedom of Cuba Sayde Chaling Chong assured that this tour is an attempt to relaunch the left in Italy: “With the political triumph that the right has had in Italy, the left is completely demoralized and I imagine they should resorting to people like Mariela Castro, supposedly a defender of the rights of homosexuals, when we all know from the testimonies that the opposite is true. She is a persecutor of homosexuals who are not on the left, who are not communists, and it is a crude attempt to launder the crimes that the Italian State is committing [con la presencia de las misiones médicas en su territorio]”.
Despite her official role as a Cuban deputy, several members of the Italian Parliament confirmed to CubaNet that they were not informed about the presence of Mariela Castro in Italy. Among them, Senator Giulio Maria Terzi di Sant’Agata (president of the Political Commission of the European Union of the Senate of the Republic), who last January supported the Democracy and Human Rights Forum for Cuba.
“I am well aware of what I have heard from the moving, often even desperate voices of Cuban dissidents, exiles from a country they love and from which they had to flee; some of them after having been imprisoned for being considered political dissidents, including mistreatment and torture,” denounced the former Italian foreign minister.
Giulio Terzi took advantage of the occasion to call for true respect for human rights on the Island: “I hope that the honorable Mariela Castro brings news, evidence and testimonies validated by Cuban political refugees in Italy and in Europe that show that in reality They are working to change this untenable and unacceptable situation.”
“Respect for human rights, fundamental freedoms, political freedoms, freedom of information, freedom to believe and not believe, freedom of the press, trade union freedoms, freedom of assembly and free speech, the ability to to be in front of a power that recognizes plurality in all senses, not only in the senses that are appropriate to power and the propaganda of power,” he added.
Likewise, the communiqué of the Cuban dissidents in Europe recalled that the European Union in its Resolution 1481/2006 “strongly condemns the crimes of totalitarian communist regimes, equating communism and communist states with fascism and national socialism for being similar in crimes.” against humanity, the ideology of hate and the tyranny of their governments”.
Consequently, Cubans in Europe are demanding that communist ideology be banned as is fascism.
“Mariela Castro’s visit is an attempt to whitewash a situation that the regime is experiencing in Europe; She has recently received the London trial, an impressive legal beating and she is trying in every way to wash her face, but her face is very dirty ”, concluded Sayde Chaling Chong.
