Luis Almagro accused the Cuban regime of committing state terrorism against its citizens

The Secretary General of the Organization of American States (OAS), Luis Almagro, accused the regime on Friday of Cuba will commit< un terrorisme d'État contre ceux qui pensent différemment >> and made him responsible for the “health and welfare” of 55 activists who are on hunger strike to protest human rights violations in the country.

“It’s time for democracy returns to Cuba“Said Almagro, who pointed out that they already are”several generations of Cubans ”who have neither rights nor freedoms due to the control of the island by an“ authoritarian ”regime.

The head of the regional body made the statements during a virtual press conference organized by Cuba Decide with José Daniel Ferrer, the head of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (UNPACU), who has been on hunger strike for seven days. Other opponents such as artist Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara also participated.

The demonstration, in which they participate 55 people in Cuba and eight abroad, denounces the police siege that the UNPACU siege has suffered for 12 days in Altamira, Santiago.

“We have no other option”

Ferrer, who participated virtually in the conference, assured that there was no “other option” but to go on hunger strike. “It’s a blockade”, Ferrer said, referring to the economic embargo the United States maintains on Cuba.

UNPACU conducts humanitarian work with food and assistance from its headquarters to help the elderly, the sick and single mothers with several children and without resources, and these are the people who couldn’t make it to headquarters for 12 days, Ferrer said.

So much Almagro as Rosa María Payá, from the organization Cuba Decide, called on the international community to solidarity with the protest and demand an end to the repression of the Cuban regime led by its president, Miguel Díaz Canel, and former president and leader of the Cuban Communist Party (PCC) Raúl Castro.

The Cuban strikers, spread across several provinces, were joined by three in Switzerland, at the United Nations headquarters, three in the United States, one in Colombia and one in Brazil, as Ferrer said.

Payá, meanwhile, described as “sad “that the hunger strike is the method of protest, having no other resource than” his own body “to denounce the repression and the critical humanitarian situation in the country.

Ferrer said one of the strikers who started the fast seven days ago had to stop due to a significant drop in her blood pressure, while other participants also began to suffer from problems with her blood pressure. health.

The activist then said that Cuban Government “Celebrates” 62 Anniversary of the Establishment of the Department of State Security Today, an organization he defined as “the political police who maintain control of the nation through terror and other nefarious actions.”

However, he pointed out, they are also met 24 years of an act of police repression that led UNPACU to decide to stop doing its job underground to enter into open peaceful opposition.

Katherine mojena, member of UNPACU and promoter of Cuba Decide, is on her second day of hunger strike in solidarity with her colleagues to “give them the strength to move forward”. He is doing it in Miami because last year he had to go into exile with members of his family, after suffering “the repression at first hand,” he told the conference.

Call to stop state terrorism

Mojena explained that the hunger strike “is not a strategy but a state of mind” in the face of the helplessness and suffocation they feel.

Luis Manuel Otero Alcantara, general coordinator of the San Isidro movement, which brings together artists who claim the right to freedom of expression and has performed in various high-level events in recent months, connected with his mobile phone from the street to express his support and solidarity with those who go on a hunger strike.

Also during the conference Several exiles and former political prisoners intervened, demanding more international sanctions and not negotiating with the regime. They also invoked the slogan “Homeland and Life”, taken from the song of the same name which calls for political change in Cuba and which has already surpassed four million views on YouTube.

“It is urgent” – concludes Payá- que the international community takes note of the “state terrorism” which is practiced daily in Cuba and contributes to putting an end to it.

With information from EFE

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