The Program for International Democratic Solidarity of CADAL, Democracy Bridge, has nominated Cuban dissident leader Manuel Cuesta Morúa spokesman for the Progressive Arch Party, to the Václav Havel 2014 Human Rights Award, according to their press release.
The award “aims to reward civil society action in defense of human rights in Europe and beyond. The candidates must have made a difference in the human rights situation of a determined group, have contributed to the exposure of large-scale systematic violation, or have successfully mobilized public opinion or the international community to review a particular case,” said CADAL (Center for Democratic Opening in Latin America), based in Argentina.
Cuesta Morúa founded the Progressive Arch with other dissidents in 2008, “with the intention of bringing together organizations of a social democratic nature, hitherto scattered in and out of Cuba,” said CADAL.
The opponent is also an activist for racial integration and against violence on the Island.
This last January he was arrested in Havana when he organized, along with CADAL and other organizations, a Democratic Forum on International Relations and Human Rights, to be held parallel to the Community of Latin American and Latin American States (CELAC) Summit.
The Cuban authorities accused him of “spreading false news against world peace.” Recently, the regime lifted a provisional release measure that obliged him to present himself to the Police weekly and blocked him from traveling abroad.
The Vaclav Havel Human Rights Prize is annual and is awarded by the Council of Europe in collaboration with the Vaclav Havel Library and the Charter 77 Foundation.
The award was created in memory of Havel, playwright, opponent of totalitarianism, architect of the Velvet Revolution of 1989, President of Czechoslovakia and then the Czech Republic, and “an enduring symbol of the opposition to the dictatorship,” noted CADAL.
From Diario de Cuba, 2 May 2014
