EFE (via 14ymedio), Miami, 20 May 2022 — The opposition groups Movimiento San Isidro [San Isidro Movement] the Opposition Movement for a New Republic and the Yoruba Free Association of Cuba received the Pedro Luis Boitel Freedom Prize this Thursday for their fight for freedom and democracy in Cuba.
The awards were presented in Miami by Cuban dissident Jorge Luis García Pérez Antúnez, who in turn collected the award for the Free Yorubas Association of Cuba, given that the leaders of this group are imprisoned on the island.
Within the framework of the 50th anniversary of the death of Pedro Luis Boitel, Antúnez said that with these recognitions delivered this Thursday, tribute is paid to all the “martyrs” who have “fallen in the fight against oppressive communism.”
Antúnez stressed that the “hardened” San Isidro Movement represents the “civic consciousness of society” and embodies the “loss of fear” of confronting the Castro regime that exists on the island.
The singer and co-founder of the San Isidro Movement, Eliecer Márquez Duany El Funky , one of the interpreters of the song Patria y Vida, received the award and said he is “sad” to learn that his “brothers are in prison,” referring to Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and Maykel Osorbo Castillo.
As José Díaz Silva, president of the Opposition Movement for a New Republic, is also in prison in Cuba, Ramón Saúl Sánchez, president of the exile group Movimiento Democracia, received the award on his behalf.
The prize was awarded to the Opposition Movement for a New Republic for being one of the “most combative organizations within Cuba”, its “impressive convening power” and its “unquestionable influence in awakening and raising awareness among the Cuban population,” Antúnez said. .
The Pedro Luis Boitel Freedom Prize was created in 2001 by a coalition of non-governmental organizations from Eastern and Central Europe together with the Cuban Democratic Directorate.
The award is presented annually to recognize the exceptional work and leadership of a representative of the resistance within Cuba who promotes a change towards democracy.
It is called the Pedro Luis Boitel Freedom Award in memory of the activist who fought against the military dictatorship of Fulgencio Batista and later against the regime of Fidel Castro who died during a hunger strike on May 25, 1972, while serving a prison sentence.
On this occasion, the award was presented during a meeting in Miami of the Hemispheric Front for Freedom, made up of politicians, NGOs, former diplomats and academics from several Latin American countries.
One of the Latin American deputies who participated in the summit, the Uruguayan Martín Elgue, asked the European Union and the Government of the United States not to “finance the regimes that help the Sao Paulo Forum,” a mechanism for coordinating parties and leftist and progressive social movements in Latin America and the Caribbean.
Regarding the controversy over whether the United States should invite Cuba, Venezuela and Nicaragua to the Ninth Summit of the Americas, to be held in June in Los Angeles, California, the Mexican René Bolio, president of the Cuba Justice Commission, assured that the governments of These three countries should not attend since they do not “legitimately” represent the peoples of these countries.
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