(EFE).- The Hemispheric Front for Freedom (FHL), made up of parliamentarians, academics, political leaders and human rights defenders from several Latin American countries, criticized Pope Francis for receive the Cuban president last weekMiguel Díaz-Canel, and treat him with “obvious affection that offends” the victims.
“It hurts us as Catholics and Christians that you receive this criminal (Díaz-Canel) and other representatives of the Castro dictatorship while the Vatican ignores the true representatives of Cuban civil society,” the FHL said Tuesday in a letter sent to Francisco.
The group says in the letter that it does not intend to question the papal decisions, but reminds the pontiff that the Cuban president “carries crimes against humanity in his file” and that “his victims cannot be ignored, much less by you.”
“With what merits or why have you received the current dictator of Cuba?” asks the FHL, after assuring that the reception of the Cuban leader “has painful and highly questionable implications.”
Díaz-Canel was received on June 20 by Pope Francis, in the first audience held in the Vatican between the two and in which they talked for 40 minutes, according to Vatican sources.
For the FHL, the granting of the meeting “should have been conditioned, publicly and at least, to the release of the Cuban political prisoners.”
After the meeting, the Cuban president met Cardinal Pietro Parolin at the Secretary of State, at whose meeting they discussed issues such as the request for the release of prisoners.
For the FHL, an organization committed to “promoting the values of freedom in the region and in the world,” the granting of the meeting “should have been conditioned, publicly and at least, to the release of Cuban political prisoners.”
He denounced in the letter that Díaz-Canel is the person who “unleashed a fierce repression that included shooting and beatings against the people who took to the streets, peacefully, to demand freedom” on July 11, 2021.
But the Cuban government, he added, “did not respect women or children and more than 1,400 people were imprisoned and 784 were sentenced to between 5 and 25 years in prison, including minors.”
The FHL reminds Francisco that “half a century of efforts, at the highest levels, have not produced an iota of moderation or tolerance in the communist regime. Not even mercy for the innocent.”
The letter, signed by Dragos Dolanescu and Orlando Gutiérrez-Boronat, president and general secretary of the FHL, respectively, ends by assuring that the Cuban regime will not change its attitude because “its ideology is based on hatred of everyone who does not think like them.” .
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