RIO DE JANEIRO, BRAZIL – Cuba will collect signatures from schools and state bodies in the country to demand the freedom of former President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, “imprisoned for politicized judicial proceedings,” the official newspaper of the Cuban government reported yesterday.
The acts of solidarity for Lula’s immediate release will continue until October 28th, one day after the 74th birthday of the former head of state, described by Granma newspaper as a “great friend” of Havana, and who has been in prison since April 2018 for crimes of corruption.
On that occasion, signatures will be collected “collectively, including first and last names, ID number and initials of each of the signatories, in order to repudiate this injustice and engage in the international campaign to annul the proceedings against Lula da Silva,” the Cuban government’s official newspaper reported.
According to the Cuban Communist Party, the campaign will serve to denounce “the strategy of imperialism, with the complicity of regional law, of discrediting progressive leaders”.
The signatories will likewise reject the statements of the current Brazilian President against Cuban doctors who worked in Brazil and returned to the island last year, by Havana’s decision, after Jair Bolsonaro had labeled the doctors “slaves of a dictatorship”.
The forms will be handed over to the Brazilian delegation that will attend the Anti-Imperialist Meeting of Solidarity for Democracy and Against Neoliberalism, scheduled for November 1st to 3rd, in Havana.
Brazil and Cuba fortified their relationship during the mandates of Lula (2003-2010) and his political heir, Dilma Rousseff (2011-2016), to whom the Caribbean country has reiterated its support on numerous occasions in the face of accusations of corruption.
Granma recalled a passage from former Cuban President Raúl Castro’s speech on January 1st, during the celebration of the 60th anniversary of the Cuban Revolution, when the leader made an “appeal to all honest political forces on the planet” for Lula’s release from prison.
The former Brazilian head of state was found guilty of the crimes of corruption and money laundering but he declares himself innocent and claims to be the victim of judicial persecution aimed at preventing his return to power.