US religious people demand Cuba’s removal from terrorist list

Washington, Mar 15 (Prensa Latina) Some twenty denominations and religious organizations in the United States called on President Joe Biden to remove Cuba from the State Sponsors of Terrorism list and lift the restrictions that affect its people at present.

March 15, 2023
12:28

In a letter addressed to the Democratic president, the signatories expressed their “deep concern about the effects that the US current policy has throughout Cuba” and suggested that the Biden administration ease Cubans’ suffering.

They warned that, in particular, Cuba’s ongoing inclusion in the State Sponsors of Terrorism list “is causing real and visible difficulties to the Cuban people.”

For the signatories of the letter, this designation is slanderous, as Cuba keeps a historic commitment to the fight against terrorism through the ratification of numerous international conventions, the signing of a bilateral agreement with the United States on that matter, and cooperation to end that scourge.

They charged that it is “increasingly impossible” for them to convey their support to the brothers of faith in due to Cuba’s permanence in Washington’s unilateral list, which creates additional difficulties to the already iron blockade that Cubans have suffered for more than six decades.

“Keeping Cuba on the list of state sponsors of terrorism undermines the stated foreign policy goals of the Biden administration,” they noted.

They claimed that coercive measures have an impact on the economy, medical programs and social welfare. In addition, “our current policy on Cuba is one of the fundamental causes of emigration,” they stressed.

As a matter of faith, we do not believe that imposing profound and painful costs on Cuba’s civilian population can be morally or pragmatically justified, the Baptist Alliance, the Armenian Orthodox Church of America, the Church World Service, the Florida Council of Churches, and the National Council of Churches of Christ in the United States, among other signatories, emphasized in the letter.

In January 2021, days before the end of his term, President Donald Trump (2017-2021) reincorporated Cuba in the State Sponsors of Terrorism list from which it was eliminated in 2015, during the rapprochement process between the two countries. in the last stage of the Barack Obama Government (2009-2017).

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