RFK Human Rights calls on the IACHR to hold Cuba responsible for the 2012 death of pro-democracy leaders Oswaldo Paya and Harold Cepero

Hearing held today starting at 2pm EST at the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights regarding Case 14.196 - Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, Harold Cepero and others vs Cuba. Below is the Youtube video.

 

 

 

 

 

IN THE NEWS

RFK Human Rights calls on the IACHR to hold Cuba responsible for the 2012 death of pro-democracy leaders Oswaldo Paya and Harold Cepero

On Tuesday, December 14th, during its 182nd period of sessions, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) based in Washington, DC, held a public hearing on the case of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, Harold Cepero et al. V. Cuba.

December 14, 2021

On July 22, 2012, Oswaldo José Payá Sardiñas, a renowned Cuban dissident and human rights leader, was killed in a car crash near Bayamo, Cuba. Harold Cepero, a young activist who was traveling with him, died in the hospital soon afterwards. Both were prominent figures in the Christian Liberation Movement, which Mr. Payá had founded in the late 1980s to promote democracy and human rights in Cuba. At the time of the crash, they were on their way to the city of Santiago to meet with other movement leaders.

The car’s two other occupants, Ángel Carromero Barrios of Spain and Jens Aron Modig of Sweden, survived with minor injuries. According to Mr. Carromero, who was driving that day, official state vehicles had been following them for hours when they were suddenly hit from behind. Cuban authorities detained, drugged and threatened Mr. Carromero, ultimately forcing him to publicly confirm the official narrative that he had lost control and hit a tree. Despite evidence that the car was intentionally rammed by a vehicle bearing state license plates, Mr. Carromero was sentenced to four years in prison after a summary trial. 

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, and Harold Cepero killed in a car crash near Bayamo, Cuba.

Left with no possibility of legal recourse in Cuba, Payá and Cepero’s family members turned to the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights. Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights filed an initial petition on their behalf in 2013. In their merits brief submitted earlier this year, the victims and their representatives call upon the IACHR to hold the Cuban State accountable for the persecution and extrajudicial executions of Mr. Payá and Mr. Cepero, as well as the failure to duly investigate their deaths. They also allege that the families were threatened, harassed, and denied their rights to justice and due process. Finally, they accuse the state of arbitrarily detaining Mr. Carromero, mistreating him during his confinement, and subjecting him to judicial proceedings that did not meet international standards of justice and due process.

Family members of both Mr. Payá and Mr. Cepero attended the hearing, along with Mr. Carromero and representatives from RFK Human Rights. The IACHR heard the testimonies of Mr. Payá’s widow, Ofelia Payá Acevedo, and his daughter, Rosa Maria Payá, who described years of harassment by Cuban government officials, previous attempts on Mr. Payá’s life, as well as the circumstances and evidence of the attack. The hearing also presented an important opportunity to update the IACHR about the intensifying repression of human rights advocacy and dissent in Cuba. Just last month, state police and security agents surrounded protest leaders’ homes in an apparent bid to intimidate the population and quash a planned nationwide demonstration.

“This case offers an opportunity to illustrate the systematic patterns of repression and persecution of dissent by the State of Cuba, and the extreme length to which the regime is prepared to go to stall democracy from flourishing in the country,” said Kerry Kennedy, president of Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights. “It is our great hope that putting the details of this case on full display after so many years will prompt the IACHR to act and issue a favorable decision soon holding the State of Cuba responsible for the murders of Payá and Cepero.”

For decades, the Cuban State has severely restricted its people’s rights to free expression and association. The facts of this case reflect a broader pattern of repressive tactics employed against political dissidents and human rights defenders, including harassment, physical attacks, and arbitrary arrests and detention. Mr. Payá and Mr. Cepero themselves had been the victims of various threats and attacks long before the collision that took their lives. Less than two months before Mr. Payá’s death, another vehicle rammed into his own with such force that his car slid across the road and overturned.

“To challenge a totalitarian system seeking truth, justice, changes that will enable Cubans to access their rights, to move to sincere democratic changes—in totalitarian systems almost always costs people their lives, or else great sacrifice,” said Ms. Acevedo. “Since Oswaldo founded the [Christian Liberation Movement] in 1988, he was threatened with death multiple times by state security, following orders, of course, from the Castros.”

Mr. Payá refused to accept financial support from the United States, defying the Cuban government’s attempts to paint him as a foreign agent. His relentless activism in support of a peaceful transition to democracy—including the Varela Project, a petition drive that garnered more than 25,000 signatures in support of a referendum to guarantee civic freedoms—won him international acclaim and numerous awards. Today, his legacy lives on in the work of his daughter, Rosa Maria, who is recognized as one of the country’s leading democracy advocates.

The Inter-American Commission thanked the participants and sent a message of solidarity to the Cuban people. “Those of us who work on human rights in the Commission sometimes ask ourselves, why continue in this, why do they [victims] keep coming? And it is because dignity is like that, and because truth and justice have to make way,” said Julissa Mantilla, first vicepresident of the IACHR.

RFK Human Rights is honored to represent the Payá and Cepero families in their quest for truth and justice, which are the necessary foundations of a real democratic future for Cuba.

Source: https://rfkhumanrights.org/rfkhr-calls-on-iachr-to-hold-cuba-responsible-for-deaths-of-paya-and-cepero

New digital edition of murdered Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas's book presented at the John F. Kennedy Library

"This book is a beacon for the future of Cuba, a vision of the precious freedom for which Oswaldo Payá fought all his life, and this will inspire new generations." - David Hoffman of The Washington Post, Pulitzer Prize winner  

The digital version of the book by Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas is available today in digital format on Amazon and published by Editorial Hypermedia Inc. 

On December 8, 2021 over social media Rosa María Payá announced that the digital edition of the book titled "The night will not be eternal" would be released, and become available.

There was a formal book presentation on Saturday, December 11, 2021 at 2:000pm in the John F. Kennedy Library in Hialeah, Florida. The presentation was made by journalist Juan Manuel Cao , with Juan Rumín Domínguez, Hypermedia editor Ladislao Aguado  and Ofelia Acevedo. 

14ymedio reported during the original book launch on July 3, 2018:

The book, subtitled “Dangers and Hopes for Cuba,” has a preface by Paya’s widow, Ofelia Acevedo, and its purpose, as explained by its author, is none other than “to help to discover that we can, indeed, live through the process of liberation and reconciliation and move into the future in peace.”

“In this book my father reflects on how and why we Cubans have come to this point in history and how we can emerge from it,” says Rosa Maria Paya, director of the Cuba Decides movement which promotes holding a plebiscite so that the Cuban people can decide what political system they want for their country.  “A process of liberation is possible,” says the dissident about what her father left in writing before being “assassinated,” in her words.

This book, and documentaries such as Dissident ( 2002) by the National Democratic Institute and The Cuban Spring (2003) by Carlos Gonzalez, of the CASLA Institute. Both in the book, and in these two documentaries readers and viewers can understand how Oswaldo lived, and the real danger he and others faced for exercising nonviolent dissent in Cuba.

The Human Rights Foundation (HRF) published a legal report on July 22, 2015 highlighting the inaccuracies and inconsistencies of the official government investigation following Payá’s death in 2012. HRF documented numerous due process violations, including damning witness accounts, a grossly inadequate autopsy examination, and other key pieces of evidence that were overlooked by the Cuban judicial system. HRF’s report concludes that the “evidence, which was deliberately ignored, strongly suggests that the events of July 22, 2012 were not an accident, but instead the result of a car crash directly caused by agents of the state.” 

Ten long years will have passed this upcoming July 22, 2022 and the silent complicity of many governments in the world is deafening, and further proof of the international decline in human rights standards, but the friends and family of Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, and Harold Cepero Escalante continue to demand justice for their loved ones murdered on July 22, 2012.

📣 La versión digital del libro de Oswaldo Payá ya está aquí!📣

Será presentado por el periodista @juanmanuelcao, con Juan Rumín Domínguez, @ladislaoaguado y mi mamá, Ofelia Acevedo
📣Biblioteca John F Kennedy, 190 W 49th St, Hialeah, FL 33012
📣Sábado 11 diciembre a las 2:00PM pic.twitter.com/J1093ajBTU

— Rosa María Payá A. (@RosaMariaPaya) December 8, 2021

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas posthumously honored with the Truman Reagan Medal of Freedom

Remembering the courage of those who resist. 

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas: February 29, 1952 – July 22, 2012

The Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation in posthumously honoring Oswaldo Payá with the Truman Reagan Medal of Freedom is bearing witness, continuing the demand for justice, and demonstrating solidarity with Cubans seeking to live in freedom.

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas was murdered together with Harold Cepero on July 22, 2012 by a regime that feared his civic and nonviolent message that spoke truth to power and endangered their plans for a fraudulent transition that is now underway that seeks to entrench another generation of the Castro dynasty in absolute power in Cuba. 

Rosa Maria Payá and Ofelia Acevedo accept the Medal of Freedom

Yesterday Oswaldo's daughter, Rosa Maria Payá, and widow Ofelia Acevedo received the Medal of Freedom on his behalf. The ceremony began with presentations by Lee Edwards and Marion Smith of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation. Rosa Maria continues her father's work in the Cuba Decide initiative.

Lee Edwards and Marion Smith of the Victims of Communism Memorial Foundation

Today, his successor in the Christian Liberation Movement, Eduardo Cardet is an Amnesty International prisoner of conscience and has been jailed since November 30, 2016. 

Past recipients of the award include: H.E. Mart Laar, Hon. Natan Sharansky, Chen Guangcheng, Hon. Lech Wałęsa, Pope John Paul II, H.E. Václav Havel, Wei Jingsheng, Elena Bonner,  and Lane Kirkland.

Below is an excerpt from the ceremony. 

#MarchForHumanity: A Reflection on MLK and Cuban dissidents

Marching for Humanity and to honor Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.'s nonviolent legacy

Marching to Atlanta's state capital from Ebeneezer Baptist Church on April 9th

I took part in the March For Humanity on April 9, 2018 in Atlanta, Georgia on the fiftieth anniversary of the funeral procession for Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Over the past week numerous events have been held to mark the 50 years since a sniper's bullet took his life. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr., like Mohandas Gandhi before him twenty years earlier, was assassinated on April 4, 1968 in Memphis Tennessee at 6:01pm.


 
Dr. King's example inspired the dissident movements in Poland, Cuba and elsewhere in the 1970s, 1980s and today. On April 4, 2018 outside of the Lorraine Hotel, author Taylor Branch reported on how a former Polish Ambassador speaking there told the crowd how MLK's movement inspired the Polish Solidarity movement.

Former Polish Ambassador tells #MLK50 in Memphis that MLK's movement inspired the Solidarity campaign that ended the Cold War without violence. pic.twitter.com/5i80Cpuc7z

— Taylor Branch (@taylorbranch) April 4, 2018

Cubans, despite efforts of Cuban communists to distort the legacy of Martin Luther King Jr with an official center in Havana, have learned of his true legacy and the type of nonviolent action he advocated. In a speech he gave in St. Augustine in 1964 Rev. Martin Luther King Jr. described both the kind of love referred to in the Sermon on the Mount and the impracticability of violence:

"Its difficult advice and in some quarters it isn't too popular to say it...Let us recognize that violence is not the answer. I must say to you tonight that violence is impractical...We have another method that is much more powerful and much more effective than the weapon of violence...Hate isn't our weapon either...I am not talking now about a weak love it would be nonsense for an oppressed people to love their oppressor in an affectionate sense I'm not talking about that too many people confuse the meaning of love when they go to criticizing the love ethic. ...I am talking about a love that is so strong that it becomes a demanding love. A love that is so strong that it organizes itself into a mass movement and says somehow I am my brothers keeper and he is so wrong that I am willing to suffer and die to get him right and to see that he is on the wrong road."

Former Cuban prisoner of conscience Roberto de Miranda in a 2015 interview spoke of how human rights defenders in Cuba teach young people about Martin Luther King Jr. and Lech Walesa today.

"We have been inspired by many figures who have carried out struggles through civil disobedience, especially people who have fought for human rights, like Dr. Martin Luther King (Jr.). In our libraries, we teach young people how his struggle was carried out, as well as teaching them about (Lech) Walesa and many others who struggled in Eastern Europe and who are great examples for the Cuban people and the dissidents."

Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas was one of the founders of the Christian Liberation Movement in Cuba that came into existence on September 8, 1988, and had it become a national movement despite all the obstacles presented by the dictatorship. Oswaldo Payá explained the methods of this movement in December of 2002 while receiving the European Union's Sakharov Prize that echo the values of both Gandhi and King:

We have not chosen the path of peace as a tactic, but because it is inseparable from the goal for which our people are striving. Experience teaches us that violence begets more violence and that when political change is brought about by such means, new forms of oppression and injustice arise. It is our wish that violence and force should never be used as ways of overcoming crises or toppling unjust governments. This time we shall bring about change by means of this civic movement which is already opening a new chapter in Cuba’s history, in which dialogue, democratic involvement, and solidarity will prevail. In such a way we shall foster genuine peace.

This is not a coincidence. Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas's widow, Ofelia Acevedo, in 2014 spoke of King's nonviolent legacy and how it inspired her and her husband to also dream and work for Cubans to enjoy a better tomorrow. Following the brief interview she pulled out a copy of the 1990 Christmas Message of the Christian Liberation movement written by Oswaldo Payá where he put on paper his dream:

"The rifles will be buried face down, the words of hatred will vanish in the heart without reaching the lips, we'll go out into the street and all of us will see in the other a brother, let us look to the future with the peace of he that knows that he forgave and he that has been forgiven. Let there be no blood to clean or dead to bury, the shadow of fear and of catastrophe will give way to the reconciliatory light, and Cuba will be reborn in every heart, in a miracle of love made by God and us."

Sadly, Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero, a youth leader from his movement who had been a seminarian were martyred on July 22, 2012 for advocating nonviolent change in Cuba. Oswaldo had managed to obtain more than 25,000 signatures in a Stalinist dictatorship demanding a vote to change the system and recognize the rights and dignity of Cubans. Like Martin Luther King Jr. he was killed but his ideas and example live on to inspire others.

In the struggle against dictatorship in Cuba it was the internal opposition that first took up nonviolence as a method to resist injustice without becoming unjust. It was the nonviolent opposition that confronted a regime rooted in hatred without hating but were followed by other organizations, including one that engaged with The King Center. 

 Coretta Scott King and Jose Basulto of Brothers to the Rescue

Brothers to the Rescue is a grassroots movement founded in May 1991 in response to the death of a fifteen year old named Gregorio Pérez Ricardo who had died fleeing Cuba on a raft only to die of exposure and dehydration. The movement was funded by the community through donations in order to carry out a nonviolent constructive program saving the lives of Cuban rafters before they died of dehydration or starvation on the high seas in small rafts. Brothers to the Rescue actively collaborated with both The King Center in Atlanta, Georgia and Gene Sharp of the Albert Einstein Institution. Brothers to the Rescue conducted more than  2,400 aerial search missions.  These resulted in the rescue of more than 4,200 men, women and children ranging in age from a five day old infant to a man 79 years of age. Sadly, Brothers to the Rescue was dealt a crippling blow on February 24, 1996 when two of its planes were blow to bits in the Florida Straits by Cuban MiGs while searching for rafters killing four humanitarians.

The dream survives in others even when the dreamer has been cut down by the forces of repression and hatred. Reverend Martin Luther King Jr. never set foot in Cuba but his example inspired generations of activists who continue to work for a better tomorrow on the island. Martin Luther King Jr. in 1963 in his famous I have a Dream Speech explained in powerful terms the importance of the now and the dangers of gradualism:

"This is no time to engage in the luxury of cooling off or to take the tranquilizing drug of gradualism. Now is the time to make real the promises of democracy. Now is the time to rise from the dark and desolate valley of segregation to the sunlit path of racial justice. Now is the time to lift our nation from the quicksands of racial injustice to the solid rock of brotherhood. Now is the time to make justice a reality for all of God's children."

Rev. King  was born 89 years ago on January 15, 1929 and lived a life of service for his fellow man and woman while resisting racism, poverty and war. He sought to make real the beloved community viewing it as an obtainable and realistic goal. At the King Center in Atlanta, Georgia they say that Dr. King was "a 20th century prophet" and "a 21st century architect." 

Both Martin and Oswaldo gave their lives in the cause of justice, dignity and peace becoming martyrs of nonviolence in the same way that Mohandas Gandhi did. Their good works live beyond them and have positive repercussions today and will continue to in the future. Michael Nagler, a long time peace scholar, presents the theorem as follows: Nonviolence sometimes “works” and always works, while by contrast, Violence sometimes “works” and never works.  Nagler offers a more detailed explanation.

The exercise of violence always has a destructive effect on human relationships even when, as sometimes happens, it accomplishes some short-term goal. The exercise of nonviolence, or Satyagraha, always brings people closer. This explains why Gandhi, after fifty years of experimentation in every walk of life, could declare that he “knew of no single case in which it had failed.” Where it seemed to fail he concluded that he or the other satyagrahis had in some way failed to live up to its steep challenge.  Taking the long view, he was able to declare that “There is no such thing as defeat in non-violence. The end of violence is surest defeat.”

Cuban opposition activist Dr. Oscar Elias Biscet, who spent over a decade in prison in Cuba for his nonviolent activism and defense of human rights would refer to and quote both Mohandas Gandhi and Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. On June 1, 2003 from his prison cell in a letter he wrote:

"My inspiration is alive: God and the great teachers of nonviolence, present today now more than ever. As Martin Luther King said: "If a people can find among their ranks a 5% of men willing to voluntarily go to prison for a cause they consider just then there is no obstacle that can stop them."

Six years later into his prison sentence in 2009 Dr. Biscet wrote about spreading the word about nonviolent icons and how some reacted with skepticism. 

 "I remember when I started preaching about Gandhi and Thoreau some said I would walk through the streets of Havana with a loin cloth like Gandhi. When I learned of these words spoken about me in a derogatory manner I just smiled because I knew I would be in these conditions but not in the streets of Havana. Rather in the infinite captivity that I would have through suffering. They had not been mistaken those who had made the joke to humiliate me. Because from the humiliation of a man in loincloth highlights the reflection of human dignity over barbarism."

 The legacy of Dr. King fifty years after his assassination continues to impact not only in the United  States, but around the world, including in Cuba among those seeking a democratic transition and an end to 59 years of totalitarian rule.

About Rosa Maria Payá: Part Two

The following text was translated from Rosa Maria's website.

The Payá Family

About Me

by Rosa Maria Payá Acevedo 

TO LIVE IN CUBA TODAY 

 With my mother and my two brothers, Oswaldo, 25, and Reinaldo, 21, we live in one of the oldest, populated and humble neighborhoods of Havana. We are very normal, with the privilege of having an exceptional father that, at age 17, finished his high school at night while during the day he broke stones in the quarries of forced labor, the punishment imposed on him for going to church. We have never complained about lack of material needs because there are some living worse, especially in rural areas. We shop at the same markets stocked as the others. An average salary in Havana fluctuates between 15 and 20 dollars a month, but a bottle of oil costs two. A kilo of detergent, three dollars and a mop, a dollar. In my house we live only on the pension that my mom receives for the death of our father and the help of our relatives living abroad. 

My mom is an engineer, and I graduated in Physics. My younger brother is a student. I studied Sciences after discarding Law, because science seemed more difficult to manipulate. Thus, the Lenin quotes also appeared in the prefaces of my books, but I learned the same differential equations that are taught at Berkeley. I don’t have a job, because the government took advantage that I was transferring from the Institute of Astronomy to a research institute at the University of Havana and pressured to refuse me entry. I love science, but also the humanities and in the future, I would like to dedicate time to them. Studying makes me happy. I lament that I could not go to Chile, a diploma in public administration and political theory at Miguel de Cervantes University interests me because it is ambitious. Chileans are a people who I respect and admire and Cubans can learn from their reconciliation process. But I could not travel. Those are the costs of living and struggling in Cuba.

In my family we have a Volkswagen car from 1964 and we consider ourselves very fortunate. A car is a rather prohibitive on the island, except for the hundreds of Fords or Oldsmobiles from the 1950s that are circulating and polluting. I move on bus (micro) or Cuban taxi, the race costs between 5 cents and half dollar. Public transport, although it has improved since my childhood, is bad: at peak times it is difficult to take and bus stop schedules are not met. But the youth, we battle the deficiencies. The Cuban people are, by nature, gregarious and cheerful, and that helps the climate. 

Young people love to get together in the evenings to talk, smoke, sing, and laugh or just to be, to spend time. I love going out with my friends, but I have had very little time since my father died. In Havana there are some pubs and clubs, but we hardly frequent them because they are little varied and very expensive. The young cultivate our own way to have fun, a simple way, without money. Each night we gather around the boardwalk (malecón) and on G Street, a major thoroughfare whose central splitter is a large park. There the young gather, there is joy when you share with friends. 

Cubans are the model of what the imagination combined with the lack of options can achieve. So we, the young, have taken areas of the city. But we also know that to sit in a café, dress with illusion, or talk in a bar, the opportunities in my country are very few or are beyond our reach. Once we were with my family on vacation to Varadero and stayed at the village church, because we know the priests. My only exceptional trip was in 2008, when I went to Poland invited by a group of young Catholics, I spent three days in Rome and some days in Madrid to see my family.

It is true that education and health in Cuba are public, but would Chilean students change their voting rights, freedom of expression, freedom of enterprise and their right to leave and enter the country freely for free higher education? I think not. In public health there are also no miracles: when a surgeon should go out to operate on bicycle while at the same time building with his own hands a house for his family, and the salary is not enough, the patients end up paying the consequences, no matter the good that doctor may have.

For young Cubans it is very frustrating to live in a place that is offline, as if living at a different time on the planet. There are prohibitions against having internet at home, those who do have received special permission from the government, or they violate the law. Network communication is censored: there are many pages that cannot be accessed and at universities and workplaces internet access is monitored and censored. Because of this the Christian Liberation Movement, of which I am the public face of since my father died, and other opposition organizations promote the Heredia Project today, a project that requires, among other things, the right to free internet access, e mail, telephone, satellite television and cable.

Cuban dissident's widow speaks out for truth and nonviolence

Ofelia Acevedo at funeral service for her husband Oswaldo Payá

Fellowship in Truth.

By Ofelia Acevedo

For the day of your birthday

Yesterday February 28 my husband Oswaldo Payá would've turned 61 years old. We used to celebrate with family and our steadfast friends. On this occasion, and for the first time, his family celebrated with steadfast friends, in an intimate and beautiful Mass, with his remains as a witness and his spiritual presence among us. All who were there knew that this was so.

Yesterday I also knew that our daughter Rosa Maria Madrid had finally managed to meet Ángel Carromero, the young Spanish politician who was driving the car where my husband and Harold Escalante were traveling. How important was to my family that interview I started to demand from the first contact I had with that officer of Criminology, who said he was Major Sanchez (on the premises of the Institute of Legal Medicine), I will never forget that afternoon of July 23 2012, who they sent from Bayamo with the body of my husband. I had clearly expressed to him that I wanted to meet with the survivors, that I had that right. He himself can confirm this, and all who have seen the film, while the short interview progressed, we had an officer with a video camera, almost on top of us. I also requested to allow me to interview the survivors to the ambassadors of Spain and Sweden on several occasions, although they let me know that was not in their hands. The kidnappers of Angel and Aron never allowed me to meet the survivors.

Now was that our daughter, being in Madrid, she could see the brave young Spaniard personally, who was a victim for four months of the mechanism of terror of Cuban State Security, and once in Spain, continues to be a victim of vicious hate filled mobs, fed God only knows with what lies, that threaten and frighten him. He is also a victim of arbitrary attitudes and shameless sectors responding to sinister interests, apparently not knowing that they are mistreating him and try to distort him. They do not understand that those who have a clear conscience and free cannot be silenced or bought, because that conscience is the voice of God.

Carromero confirmed to our daughter what we knew from the first moment by text messages that they had been sent to Stockholm and Madrid: a car rammed them off the road, he and the young Swede were taken out and rapidly introduced into another car, and my husband Oswaldo Payá and our dear Harold Cepero were alive at that time. They never crashed into any tree, there was no car accident, for now we do not know where in our country my husband and Harold were torn from this life. What happened onwards only the agents of State Security that caused the event and gave an account of their lives, and someone very important, the Lord of history, always present, He will judge us all one day.

Oswaldo and Harold are no longer physically with us, and I remember now those words Archbishop Oscar Arnulfo Romero prophetically uttered one day, knowing he was threatened with death: I will resurrect in the people. The same will happen here sooner rather than later. They and others who generously have lost their lives in this struggle for rights and democracy for Cuba, will resurrected in her people. But his message of love is alive. His proposed authentic changes, his generous pursuit of truth and justice for all, was captured in the document The Peoples Path, thousands of Cubans inside and outside of Cuba have supported and continue to support us with their name, and now MCL members along with other opponents are committed to disseminating amid repression, surveillance, harassment and threats.

This road is an alternative policy conceived for only Cubans does it truly correspond to design, decide and build their future, but it requires generosity, humility and love for our neighbors, like Harold and Oswaldo felt: Our neighbor is the Cuban of today, here and now. This is the only way to disarm the compendium of hate, lies and wickedness that has so long prevailed in our country.

We know how they manipulate, create false opposition activists, or organizations, control the media, slander, lie, insult, try to discredit, divide and exacerbate the worst feelings that people can feel, but nothing can stop us if we remain faithful and united in these intentions: be all protagonists of change toward freedom and peace here and now. Today we are calling for truth, justice and brotherhood so that beyond our own miseries we all march along this road.

We are now in a clear moment to observe these events of which we talked. The heartbreaking words of my daughter, after her meeting with Ángel Carromero.

Until now these same media are mostly silent, as if waiting for orders to see how to face the fact, because it is a fact. Other people are not aware of or by what is happening, buying time to measure their intervention. Others have already started their barrage of insults, lies, spewing hatred and evil, they are found in Madrid, Miami, Havana and other parts of the world. It is easy to recognize them by the foul language in expressing their infamies. One of the ephemeral successes of the maneuvers of State Security is to kill solidarity, avoid at all costs the fraternity, especially among Cubans.

Today I commented to a reporter from a radio station in Miami who called my home, what I think is most important, giving full meaning to the sacrifice of our martyrs and my husband stated in his speech in Strasbourg, where he was awarded the Sakharov Prize: "The first victory we can claim is that our hearts are free of hatred. Hence we say to those who persecute us and who try to dominate us: ‘You are my brother. I do not hate you, but you are not going to dominate me by fear. I do not wish to impose my truth, nor do I wish you to impose yours on me. We are going to seek the truth together." (...) The Cubans (...) we cannot, we do not know how, and do not want to live without freedom.

Follow peacefully this way is the Path of the People.

Havana, March 1, 2013

Ofelia Acevedo Maura

Member of the Coordinating Council M.C.L.

Original text in Spanish

Seven months after Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas's suspicious death his widow recieves a death threat

"The greatest incitement to guilt is the hope of sinning with impunity."- Cicero 

Rosa Maria and her mom Ofelia

Rosa Maria Paya Acevedo over facebook and twitter on Friday, February 22, 2013: "Ofelia Acevedo threatened with death 'Daughter of a bitch, we are going to kill you,' they said by telephone. These are common threats against our family and Oswaldo Paya received many until they ended his life and that of Harold Cepero 7 months ago. The Cuban regime is responsible for what may happen to our family."

Josefina Paya

Seven months after Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas's and Harold Cepero's suspicious deaths Oswaldo's widow recieves a death threat. Josephina Paya, Oswaldo's aunt, also received a death threat via telephone, according to a publication made by members of the Christian Liberation Movement on their website reported Pedazos de la Isla.

The failure of the international community to unite in demanding justice for these families has dire consequences. Impunity only encourages more crimes and injustices not less.

Whether you are an elected official, a representative of a non-governmental organization, or a citizen there is always something you can do to denounce injustice.

Please take action before its too late.

Prayers for Harold Cepero on what should have been his 33rd birthday

"Those who remove and crush freedom are the real slaves." - Harold Cepero Escalante (January 29, 1980 - July 22, 2012)

"Harold Cepero Escalante (1980-2012) In honor of his life.
Harold would have turned 33 years old today, January 29"

He was a young man of faith with great courage and conviction who was expelled from University for signing and encouraging other students to sign a petition demanding that the government respect and observe international human rights standards called the Varela Project. Rather than remain silent in the face of this act of repression, as many have done, he spoke out and denounced the expulsion along with others who had suffered the same fate and went on to become a youth leader in the Christian Liberation Movement. Below is a message he sent out to Cubans in the diaspora.



Today there are Masses being held in Cuba, Spain, and the United States to honor the life of Harold Cepero Escalante in response to a request by Ofelia Acevedo. 

Mass for Harold in Madrid, Spain on January 29, 2013

Harold should be turning 33 years old today, but due to the events on July 22, 2012 that have still to be properly investigated and the truth arrived at, remains suspicious due to the dictatorship's behavior and reports of other vehicles involved in the "accident" and the lack of medical treatment for Harold.

Harold and the Paya children holding banner:
"The truth shall set you free." - John 8,32

 Arriving at the truth of what took place on that stretch of road on July 22, 2012 will be an important step on the road to justice. Friends and relatives of Oswaldo and Harold continue to demand an independent investigation into their deaths, but after six months the motives for the dictatorship wanting them dead becomes clear: 

"The fraudulent change that Oswaldo Paya and the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL) denounced has three key factors: the military-economic oligarchy, the Catholic hierarchy and some Cuban exile entrepreneurs. This denouncement made by Oswaldo was what triggered the final order to end his and Harold's lives." - Christian Liberation Movement, January 29, 2013

Former prisoner of conscience and Christian Liberation Movement spokesman addresses the World Movement for Democracy

Statement by Regis Iglesias, Christian Liberation Movement spokesman upon receiving on behalf of the Cuban opposition movement the Democracy Courage Tribute from the World Movement for Democracy (WMD)

Cubans have lived under dictatorships or totalitarian regimes for over half a century.

Our situation is dramatic. 50 years without freedom of expression, freedom of association, without economic rights for citizens. Cubans do not have freedom of movement. The Cuban family is divided, our Nation is divided and popular sovereignty is trampled on by the oligarchs in power.

I have the privilege to receive this recognition that is being given to us today, on behalf of all Cubans throughout this painful time have worked and fought for the rights of the Cuban people. Men and women like  Ofelia Acevedo, Ernesto Martini, Librado Linares, Eduardo Diaz, Jorge García Perez, (Antunez), Sara Fonseca, Rosa Rodriguez, Ivan Hernandez who like many others still resist there in Cuba, beset by brutal repression.

I receive it on behalf of more than 25,000 citizens that in the midst of terror have demanded the regime hold a plebiscite for their rights, on behalf of thousands of activists for freedom that in the face of fraudulent change that the joint military-economic junta of the island want to sell  give their support to "El Camino del Pueblo" [The People's Path]. I receive it in the name of Felix Navarro, Angel Moya, Ezequiel Morales, Berta Soler, Rosa María Paya, Narviel Hernandez, Orlando Luis Pardo and many, many more. None of them can be here today, as you, because the joint military-economic junta on the island doesn't permit them to leave their own country. Fraudulent changes announced by the Cuban regime do not include all rights for all Cubans.

But above all I want to receive this recognition for all my countrymen, for all the martyrs who along more than half a century of totalitarianism have generously given their lives for liberation. On behalf of Pedro Luis Boitel, Sebastian Arcos, Orlando Zapata, Julio Ruiz Pitaluga, Laura Pollan.. Also for Harold Cepero and Oswaldo Paya for whom we will not rest until the truth is known about their deaths and we urge the international community to support an independent investigation that finally recognizes the crime.

With the decision of the Cuban people and your solidarity, of all men and women of good will in the world some day justice will arrive to our beloved Cuban land, the truth will have its temple. Cuba reborn and free all her children be reconciled tired of both despotism and hatred.

Truth and love will reign in our beloved island. We need our Latin American brothers, our democratic friends around the world to be with us now, that their commitment be on the side of the Cuban people who are suffering and have no rights. Dictatorships only despotic and oppressive systems that generally in the name of national sovereignty restrict popular sovereignty and leave citizens without rights.  

Thank you for walking in solidarity with Cubans all these years the steps have brought us closer to freedom, thank you that together we will realize that day long dreamed by us. 

Regis Iglesias


Palabras de Regis Iglesias, portavoz del Movimiento Cristiano Liberación, al recibir en nombre del movimiento opositor cubano el Premio al Valor del Movimiento Mundial por la Democracia (WMD)

Los cubanos hemos vivido bajo regímenes dictatoriales o totalitarios por mas de medio siglo.

Nuestra situación es dramática. 50 años sin libertad de expresión, sin libertad de asociación, sin derechos económicos para los ciudadanos. Los cubanos no tenemos libertad de movimiento. La familia cubana esta dividida, nuestra Nación esta dividida y la soberanía popular es pisoteada por los oligarcas en el poder.

Tengo el privilegio de recibir este reconocimiento que hoy se nos entrega., en nombre de todos los cubanos que a lo largo de este tiempo doloroso han trabajado y luchado por los derechos del pueblo cubano. Hombres y mujeres como Ofelia Acevedo, Ernesto Martini, Librado Linares, Eduardo Diaz, Jorge García Perez, (Antunez), Sara Fonseca, Rosa Rodriguez, Ivan Hernandez que como muchos otros aun resisten allí, en Cuba, acosados por la brutal represión.

Lo recibo en nombre de los más de 25,000 ciudadanos que en medio del terror han demandado al régimen un plebiscito por sus derechos, en nombre de miles de activistas por la libertad que frente al cambio fraude que nos quiere vender la junta económico militar de la isla dan su apoyo al documento El Camino del Pueblo. Lo recibo a nombre de Felix Navarro, Angel Moya, Ezequiel Morales, Berta Soler, Rosa María Paya, Narviel Hernandez, Orlando Luis Pardo y muchos, muchos mas. Ninguno de ellos puede hoy estar aquí, como ustedes, porque la junta económico militar en la isla no les permite salir de su propio país. Los cambios fraudes que anuncia el régimen cubano no incluyen todos los derechos para todos los cubanos.

Pero sobre todo quiero recibir este reconocimiento por todos mis compatriotas, por todos los mártires que a lo largo de mas de medio siglo de totalitarismo han dado sus vidas generosas por la liberación. En nombre de Pedro Luis Boitel, Sebastian Arcos, Orlando Zapata, Julio Ruiz Pitaluga, Laura Pollan. También en el de Harold Cepero y Oswaldo Paya por quienes no descansaremos hasta que la verdad sobre sus muertes sea conocida e instamos a la comunidad internacional a que apoye una investigación independiente que finalmente reconozca el crimen.

Con la decisión de los cubanos y la solidaridad de ustedes, de todos los hombres y mujeres de buena voluntad del mundo la justicia llegara algún día a nuestra amada tierra cubana, la verdad tendrá su templo. Cuba renacerá y libres se reconciliaran todos sus hijos cansados de tanto despotismo y odio.

La verdad y el amor reinaran en nuestra amada isla. Necesitamos que nuestros hermanos latinoamericanos, nuestros amigos demócratas de todo el mundo estén con nosotros ahora, que su compromiso esté del lado pueblo cubano que sufre y no tiene derechos . Las dictaduras solo sistemas despóticos y opresivos que por lo general en nombre de la soberanía nacional coartan la soberanía popular y dejan a los ciudadanos sin derechos..

Gracias a ustedes por caminar solidarios junto a los cubanos todos estos años los pasos que nos han acercado a la libertad, gracias porque juntos podremos hacer realidad ese día largamente soñado por nosotros.

Regis Iglesias

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