Martha Beatriz Roque arrives in the US for medical treatment

Cuban opposition leader Martha Beatriz Roque arrived in Miami on Tuesday to undergo medical treatment required due to her delicate health status.

Roque Cabello, 79, spent several weeks at the Brothers Ameijeiras Surgical Clinical Hospital in Havana. It was admitted by renal failure caused by diabetes, with urinary infection. He was discharged on February 14.

The Legal Rescue Foundation issued a statement on the departure of Cuba’s policy expricera. In the text he thanked the interest and concern for the health of the opponent and said that any update on its health status will be communicated exclusively by the medical team in charge of its treatment.

He also asked for respect for the privacy of Roque and prayers and good wishes for his improvement.

The opponent, a political prisoner on two occasions and economist by profession, served until the moment of admission as an advisor to the Independent Cuban Center for Human Rights.

On December 10, International Human Rights Day, Roque held an encounter with Mike Hammer, business manager at the United States Embassy in Cuba.

The political expreasing, who has dedicated the last four decades of her life to fighting for human rights in Cuba, has suffered for years the constant harassment of state security.

Roque Cabello is one of the oldest members of the opposition on the island. She was the only woman who was part of the group of the 75 opponents imprisoned in 2003 during the repressive period known as black spring.

It was sentenced to 20 years in prison and released in July 2004 with an extrapenal license for medical reasons. The authorities never exonerated her from the charges. When he left prison, he joined the Opposition Movement of Blanco.

Before black spring, he had already served other sentences for his activism. In 1997 he founded with Félix Bonne, René Gómez Manzano and Vladimiro Roca, the internal dissent working group and signed a statement entitled “The homeland belongs to everyone”, a document that requested economic and political openness in Havana.

They sentenced her to three and a half years in jail for the crimes of «attack» against state security and «sedition.» In May of the year 2000 she was released and two years later formed the Assembly to promote civil society.

Last March the United States Department of the United States gave the International Award for Women of Courage 2024. More than 190 women worldwide have received that award.

Roque could not participate in the ceremony because since 2018 the regime of Havana kept it in a list of regulated people, a category used by the Government to prohibit the country’s departure to activists, opponents and members of civil society. Two years before he had visited USA and returned to Cuba, where he continued his work in favor of human rights and freedom.