Race & Equality and Soraya Rodríguez MEP (Renew Europe). European Parliament.
On April 23, Soraya Rodríguez Ramos presented with the NGO Race & Equality the screening of the documentary “Cuba: two homelands” organised by Renew Europe.
The documentary “Dos Patrias” tells the stories of Aymara Nieto Muñoz, Eduardo Cardet Concepción and Xiomara Cruz Miranda, three activists who have suffered the repression of the Cuban state for defending human rights, being imprisoned for exercising their right to freedom of expression, assembly and to march peacefully.
The screening of the documentary was preceded by a colloquium, in which participated Alfredo Martínez Ramírez, Cuban human rights defender, and Elena Larrinaga, also an activist for human rights and the liberation of Cuba and founder of the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights.
Both reflected on the “dos patrias” of Cuban people in exile, and, faced with this duality, discussed the ways and possibilities that the EU has to support freedoms and human rights in the country.
Both Larrinaga and Martínez spoke of the complete exhaustion of the system and the discontent of the Cuban people over the continued persecution of freedoms and the scarcity that is increasing every day, with a country mired in the greatest economic crisis of the last 30 years.
Soraya Rodríguez, on the other hand, stressed the importance of the EU continuing to insist on the release of political prisoners and to take Cuban civil society into account: “Europe must reap tangible fruits from a dialogue that does not exclude civil society under the pretext of not disturbing the regime”
