Cuban regime denies exit to opposition member while criticizing flight ban to the island

January 13, 2020 - 6:01 PM - By Daniel Castropé

Adel López, a national director of the Republican Party of Cuba, was prevented from traveling to the US from Havana after his passport was confiscated without any explanation.

Adel López Napoles

MIAMI (Diario Las Américas) – Without any explanation, but unable to travel outside the country. This was the situation left by Adel López, a national leader of the Republican Party of Cuba , after members of the Immigration and Customs services, belonging to the Ministry of the Interior, prevented him from leaving José Martí International Airport, where he had traveled from the Isle of Youth to make a trip to the United States.

López, who was still in room number two of the José Martí International Airport in Havana when he answered a phone call from DIARIO LAS AMÉRICAS, said that the officers took his passport and demanded that he return to the Isle of Youth (Isla de Pinos) “so that they can tell me what my legal situation is there.”

According to the opposition member, it is “clear” that now “they are again 'regulating' me so that I cannot leave the country,” a situation that —from his point of view— “is a product of the growing presence of the Republican Party on the streets, and that is something they do not like.”

López's flight was scheduled to depart from Havana at 5:10 p.m. "I had my ticket, and the immigration officers told me I had a travel ban. They took my ticket, told me it was on orders from higher up, and that they had no reason to give out information," he said.

Cuban authorities frequently prohibit the freedom of movement of dissidents within Cuban territory and, in addition, "regulate" them to prevent them from leaving the country, generally as a way of restricting their participation in political or social events.

The travel ban imposed on López by Cuban immigration authorities, without offering him a convincing argument, comes after Cuban leader Miguel Díaz-Canel asserted that a US-enacted measure restricting charter flights to provinces of the island, starting March 10, is a “violation of human rights.”

Similarly, Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla referred to the measure adopted by the US Treasury Department as "something that divides Cuban families."

According to López's account, "this is a way of punishing me for the way I speak out and reject the disgusting things they are doing to the people, so that they can enrich themselves more and more each day."

He added that he did not plan to "leave the airport, even if they beat me up like they always do" and anticipated that "now they will surely put me in jail just because I claim my rights and I am a person who does not think the way they want me to."

López said that last April, when he was also preparing to travel to the United States "to visit some relatives I have in Houston, Texas," Cuban authorities prohibited him from leaving the island.

“I call on the international community to put pressure on the Castro regime about this,” he said, adding later, “This is a violation of human rights.”

The opposition leader recalled that he has been imprisoned “multiple times” for his activism, primarily on the Isle of Youth. “I spent three years deprived of my freedom for a crime that the authorities labeled counterrevolutionary.”

He asserted that after this “regulation” it is likely that “other coercive measures will come”, adding: “They want to break me, but they won’t succeed.”

The Cuban critic asserted that Cuban authorities had not previously informed him of the travel restriction against him. “They waited until I had checked in, and only when I was already in the waiting area did they tell me I couldn't travel,” he stated.