Global Online Event Commemorates Oswaldo Paya and Harold Cepero

Young people in the act of homage to Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero this Wednesday in the Netherlands. (Facebook / Cuba Decides)

14ymedio bigger14ymedio, Havana, 22 July 2020 — Activists of the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) denounced on social media on Wednesday that they were harassed by the Police, in Havana, to prevent them from approaching the grave of Oswaldo Payá, in the Cristóbal Colón cemetery in the Cuban capital.

Wednesday marks eight years since the death of Payá and Harold Cepero, in a car crash whose circumstances have not yet been clarified and which the family has always considered to be murder.

In his memory, there is a world event organized by the Cuba Decides association and the Foundation for Pan American Democracy. The event comprising 12 hours of online transmission from different cities of the world and Cuba, addressed the different facets of the activists.

The day started in the Netherlands at nine in the morning, Cuba time, with a forum for politicians and young exiles in Europe. Later, other young people joined the tribute from Spain.

At one o’clock in the afternoon, a remote roundtable took place between different Latin American parliamentarians — Mexicans Ricardo Morales Kuhn and Cecilia Romero, Colombia’s Paola Holguín, and Guatemala’s Aníbal Samayoa — which analyzed the influence of Castroism on the continent and honored the dissidents with the sign of the “L” for “freedom” that Payá made famous.

Other tribute events include a ceremony at the Monument to the Victims of Communism in Washington DC; the presentation of the book written by Payá and published posthumously The night will not be eternal and a mass in the church of St. Raymond of Peñafort in Miami.

Oswaldo Payá, founder of the MCL, was the architect of the Varela Project, which, based on the 1992 Cuban Constitution, sought to collect the signatures of citizens to propose new laws. Payá managed to gather some 25,000 signatures to request a referendum in Cuba with the aim of establishing, among other changes, free elections and freedom of expression.

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