Cuban participants at the recently concluded Summit of the Americas issued a joint statement of solidarity with activists who have been prevented by the regime from traveling to the United States to join the event.
“First of all, we express our solidarity with our brothers on the island, who have not been allowed to reach the top of the Americas. But not only them, but also all those who have been on ‘regulated’ lists for years,” said Félix Llerena of Youth and Democracy in the Americas.
“We are making it very clear that the regime must stay away from these summits until it fulfills the Inter-American Democratic Charter. I think it is important to stand up to dictatorships and regimes and tell them: “What you are doing, you have no right”. It is also time for the international community to act with determination and strength,” said the exiled activist.
The proclamation notes that “the Cuban government, through state policy, prevented seven Cuban citizens, representatives of independent civil society, from attending this Summit of the Americas, in violation of Article 13 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights. People”.
The Cuban authorities barred independent journalists Henry Constantín and María Matienzo, apostolic priest Alain Toledano, musician Osvaldo Navarro and activists Sayli González, Aimara Peña and Marthadela Tamayo from leaving the country.
In this sense, the document emphasizes that the concept of “regulated” “is legally nonexistent and arbitrary, even within the legal framework of Cuba without legal support”.
“I think that one of the most important things that happened at the summit was the meeting between different parts of Cuban civil society that, because of the problems of the dictatorship and for so long, have regenerated and created themselves and recreated themselves in different parts of the world. Those of us who are outside and those who are in Cuba are the same civil society,” stressed art curator Anamely Ramos, partner of imprisoned rapper Maikel Castillo El Osorbo, co-author of the song Patria y vida.
“The first thing was that we were there, that we could speak, that the governments of Cuba, Nicaragua and Venezuela were not invited, the official delegations, but that we were there on behalf of the Cubans. And then this statement is like a call to the international community to understand what is happening in Cuba, to condemn that there is no free movement in Cuba and there should be, because it is part of the freedom of citizens,” he said.
“This type of event is the only opportunity currently available to Cubans to regenerate a social fabric that has been intentionally damaged,” Ramos said.
The Manifesto emphasizes that every Cuban “has the right to express in the first person what is happening in a country devastated by hunger, lack of freedom and injustice”, adding:
“Once again, the Cuban government is using exile as a punitive policy against dissidents, obliging activists to leave the country by not returning to Cuba.”
The social actors called on the states gathered at the America Summit to demand the release of the more than a thousand political prisoners currently on the island, including minors, and called on the democracies to oppose the dictators of Cuba, Venezuela and unite Nicaragua.
This declaration was signed by at least 14 independent Cuban organizations.