The Diplomat
On the same day that the Ministry of Justice granted Spanish citizenship by letter of nature to seven other Nicaraguan dissidents, another person fleeing repression in her country received Spanish citizenship by the same procedure: Cuban judo player Ayumi Leiva.
Last Wednesday, the Official State Gazette (BOE) published the decision of the Council of Ministers, at the proposal of the Minister of Justice, Pilar Llop, to grant Ayumi Leiva Sánchez Spanish nationality by letter of nature, an exceptional and much faster procedure than the usual channels that prevents these people from prolonging their stateless situation for a long time.
In August 2021, Ayumi Leiva, then 19 years old, took advantage of a stopover in Madrid of the Cuban national judo team, which was on its way to Cali to participate in the Junior Pan American Qualifier, to request political asylum. In declarations to the media, Leiva explained at the time that she had been preparing her escape from Cuba for more than a month together with another judo player, Nahomys Acosta, and that her intention was to take advantage of the fact that there was no direct flight from Havana to Colombia to ask for political asylum in Madrid. She did so in the international area of Barajas T4, when, taking advantage of an oversight, the two athletes separated from the group and asked the police at passport control for political asylum.
“In Cuba there was no future, but I did not want to leave my mother alone. I talked it over with her beforehand and she gave me her blessing. She told me to go ahead, that from Spain I would be able to help her more. And that everything would work out,” Leiva told the sports daily Marca. “I said I was never going to leave Cuba, but in training for Cali I felt mistreated, humiliated, the teachers didn’t pay attention to me. I was too tired and they didn’t listen to me. Every day it was a different kind of mistreatment. A friend of mine felt the same way and we planned all this together,” she explained in another interview to Diario de Cuba.
After her arrival in Spain, Ayumi Leiva lived in a shelter in Madrid and, shortly after, she was transferred to a shelter in Valencia thanks to the efforts of the Red Cross. The athlete currently resides in the capital of the Turia, where she receives 170 euros a month for food and hygiene and 50 euros for her “things” (“I have everything I need”) and continues to train at the High Performance Center (CEAR).
In October 2021, the Valencian Judo Federation (FVJ) asked the Royal Spanish Judo Federation to allow him to participate in the Spanish Championships in December 2021. Despite being a legal resident after receiving political asylum and despite having his papers in order, the Federation denied him permission (only 48 hours before the start of the tournament) on the grounds that it could not confirm that he had been practicing judo for at least three seasons, despite having dedicated himself to the sport for eleven years in Cuba and having a black belt.
That news was a disappointment, but the athlete did not give up and immediately began the procedures to obtain Spanish nationality with the aim, in her own words, of “representing Spain, giving it medals and giving it everything… And if I can, an Olympic one”. “That would be the greatest thanks for how much they have done for me,” he added, in statements to Marca. In the aforementioned interview with Diario de Cuba, Ayumi Leyva addressed the young Cubans who are involved in sports, to whom she advised “not to put up with humiliations, it’s hard because in Cuba we can’t open up and express what we feel. We are not submissive, we are high performance athletes”.
