PP calls on the Government to denounce the repression in Cuba at the Ibero-American Summit

The Diplomat The People’s Parliamentary Group in Congress has urged the Government to denounce the political repression, the lack of freedoms, and the “structural failure” of “the Cuban dictatorship” before “the relevant international forums, including the United Nations, the European Union, and the Ibero-American summits,” and to compile “a list of political prisoners with Spanish nationality in Cuba or those requiring urgent consular, medical, or humanitarian assistance.” In a non-binding motion registered on May 29 (and published this Tuesday in the Official Gazette of the Spanish Parliament) for debate in the Foreign Affairs Committee, the People's Party denounces that “Cuba is experiencing one of the most serious political, social, economic, and humanitarian crises in its recent history” as a consequence of “decades of communist dictatorship,” “sustained repression against those who peacefully demand freedom,” and “a corrupt and closed political system, without democratic controls, without separation of powers, without freedom of the press, without electoral guarantees comparable to a pluralistic democracy, and without real respect for human rights.” The text also denounces that “the situation of political prisoners constitutes the clearest expression of the repressive nature of the Cuban regime” and warns that “Cuba has reached a new record of 1,260 political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, figures that confirm the Cuban regime's intention to maintain its machinery of repression intact.” “Political repression in Cuba is also occurring within a context of profound social deterioration,” the statement continues. According to the party led by Alberto Núñez Feijóo, “Spain maintains first-rate historical, social, cultural, and political ties with Cuba and cannot remain equidistant in the face of this reality.” Therefore, it warns, “Spanish foreign policy must abandon any form of complacency with the Cuban dictatorship and recover a clear position in defense of human rights, political prisoners, democracy, and the freedom of the Cuban people.” “In recent years, the Spanish government has maintained a foreign policy marked by a worrying leniency toward authoritarian regimes in Latin America, but the defense of human rights cannot depend on ideological affinities, partisan balances, or short-term diplomatic calculations,” the PP asserts. “The People’s Party defends an Ibero-American foreign policy based on freedom, democracy, the rule of law, the protection of human rights, and unequivocal support for democratic forces, which, moreover, represent a unity never before seen in the history of Cuba,” it asserts. “It is therefore essential to denounce the repression, demand the release of all political prisoners, and promote an immediate, peaceful, orderly, and fully democratic transition in Cuba, led by Cubans and oriented toward national reconciliation,” the People’s Party Group warns. Therefore, the non-binding resolution urges the Government to “condemn the existence of political prisoners and prisoners of conscience in Cuba, as well as the repression carried out by the Cuban regime against activists, journalists, human rights defenders, family members of opposition members, artists, students, religious figures, and citizens,” and to “demand that the Cuban regime immediately, unconditionally, and with full rights, release all political prisoners and prisoners of conscience, rejecting any form of partial or conditional release, release subject to house arrest, surveillance, forced exile, or subsequent restriction of civil and/or political liberties.” It also calls on the Government to “expressly support the Release Agreement signed jointly by Cuban civic, opposition, and democratic resistance organizations, as a framework for forging a democratic, peaceful, and orderly exit from the dictatorship,” and to compile, “in coordination with international human rights organizations, a list of political prisoners with Spanish nationality in Cuba, or those requiring urgent consular, medical, or humanitarian assistance.” The text also urges the government to “denounce in the relevant international forums, including the United Nations, the European Union, and the Ibero-American Summits, the social, economic, and humanitarian crisis that Cuba is experiencing as a consequence of decades of dictatorship, political repression, lack of freedoms, and the structural failure of the model imposed by the regime.” The next Ibero-American Summit will be held in Madrid this coming November.

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