The Cuban community in Miami remembers dissident Oswaldo Paya ten years after his death

MADRID, July 22 (EUROPA PRESS) –

Dozens of people have gathered in the US city of Miami to commemorate Cuban dissident Oswaldo Paya Sardiñas on the tenth anniversary of his death and, to do so, they have given his name to one of the busiest streets in the town.

The authorities of Miami-Dade County, in the state of Florida, have indicated that “preserving the legacy of Paya, a great defender of Human Rights, is very important.”

Rebaca Sosa, a member of the local government, has expressed that “it is an honor that this street is named in the great memory of the great Paya, a man who fought for freedom, for democracy, who was persecuted, who was assassinated and this remains in the district for history, so that future generations will know what they did.

Thus, he stressed that losing the opponent “was a great pain” and made it clear that he did not have “the opportunity to leave Cuba.” His widow, Ofelia Acevedo, has indicated in statements to Radio Television Marti that the pain “is still as valid as the day he died.”

“The family continues to miss Oswaldo very much and that will be the case, that will always be the case,” he said. Her daughter, on his part, has stressed that his father “dedicated her life to transforming Cuba” and has stressed that “although he has not changed yet, the Cuban people have.”

“My dad dedicated his life to making us Cubans take that step which is first of all a step of personal liberation, but which is also a step out of love for our neighbor and so that we take the step of claiming rights for ourselves, for our children. , for our country”, affirmed the also opposition.

This Friday, the president of the European Parliament, Roberta Metsola, took the opportunity to remember his death and underlined that he was a “tireless fighter for democracy and freedom in Cuba.”

“Paya dedicated his life to the belief that one day Cubans would be free. Let’s make this example an inspiration and never be forgotten,” he said in a message posted on his Twitter account.

Leader of the Christian Liberation Movement and Sakharov Prize winner in 2002, Paya was one of the best-known Cuban dissidents. He launched the Varela Project, which managed to collect thousands of signatures in Cuba at the beginning of 2000 in support of the holding of a referendum requesting a constitutional change, the introduction of freedom of association and expression, free elections, freedom of enterprise and amnesty for political prisoners.

The Cuban opponent died in a traffic accident in 2012, an accident that his family still blames on the government. The car in which he was traveling together with the PP member Ángel Carromero –who was driving the vehicle–, a Swedish politician and the Cuban opponent Harold Cepero –who also died– suffered an accident that, according to the family, was caused by another vehicle that rammed him and drove him off the road. Thus, the relatives support the hypothesis that the accident was caused by the Cuban secret services.

Source: Europa Press