Rosa María Payá coordinates the pro-Cuba democracy platform Cuba Decide. She is the daughter of the revered late Catholic Cuban dissident Oswaldo Payá. | Credit: Yamil Lage/AFP via Getty Images
By Eduardo Berdejo
ACI Prensa Staff, Mar 21, 2024 / 17:05 pm
The Cuba Decides initiative, founded by Catholic opposition activist Rosa María Payá, is calling on the international community to side with the Cuban people and support the country’s peaceful transition to democracy, a demand made by protesters
in July 2021 as well as
last weekend.
Payá is the daughter of revered Catholic pro-democracy leader Oswaldo Payá, who was
reportedly assassinated by the Castro regime in 2012.
In an email sent to ACI Prensa, CNA’s Spanish-language news partner, the democratic initiative referred to the protests that took place March 18 in cities such as Santiago de Cuba and Bayamo, in which numerous people took to the streets to demand a change in the system due to continuous power outages and food shortages on the island.
“The situation is critical; the regime has plunged the Cuban people into a deep humanitarian crisis marked by hunger [and] systemic failures in practically all public services, from health to transportation and energy,” the organization explained.
Furthermore, “the absolute ineptitude and negligence of the state [as well as] political repression and violence prevail. The regime holds more than 1,000 political prisoners as hostages in what amounts to torture. Opposition leader José Daniel Ferrer has been missing in prison since Nov. 28, 2023,” Cuba Decides stated.
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