Tomorrow marks the day 14 years ago agents of the Cuban dictatorship murdered pro-democracy leaders Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero.

Oswaldo Payá was one of the founders of the Christian Liberation Movement, a Sakharov Laureate who had been twice nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. He also had dual Cuban – Spanish citizenship. Harold Cepero was a youth leader in the Christian Liberation Movement.

After that, thirteen years ago Robert F. Kennedy Human Rights petitioned the  Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to examine the evidence around the deaths of Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero on July 22, 2012.

On June 12, 2023 the IACHR published their report on the merits that found Cuban government agents responsible for the deaths of the two pro-democracy leaders and Christian Liberation Movement leaders.

Tomorrow, July 22nd, the Christian Liberation Movement will hold a mass for Oswaldo Payá and Harold Ceperro at the Church of St Raymond located at 3475 SW 17 St, Miami, FL 33145.

Why did the Cuban dictatorship seek revenge against Oswaldo and Harold? 

The Varela Project demonstrated to the international community that tens of thousands of Cubans were not satisfied with the status quo, and wanted human rights to be respected, and multiparty democracy to return to Cuba. This contradicted the official narrative.

On May 10, 2002, Oswaldo, along with Regis Iglesias and Tony Diaz Sanchez of the Christian Liberation Movement, turned in 11,020 Varela Project petitions, and news of the petition drive was reported worldwide.

Consequently, Regis Iglesias and Tony Diaz Sanchez were sentenced to long prison sentences in March 2003 following show trials, along with 73 other Cuban dissidents. Many of them had taken part in the Varela Project and, nearly eight years later, were forced into exile as an alternative to completing their prison sentences.

Subsequently, in spite of the crackdown, Oswaldo would turn in another 14,384 petition signatures with Freddy Martini on October 5, 2003. He would spend the next eight years campaigning for the release of his imprisoned compatriots and continuing campaigns to achieve a democratic transition in Cuba.

Finally, early in 2012 Oswaldo also denounced that the Cuban government was engaged in a fraudulent change in which Cuban exiles were being asked to be complicit in their own repression. Once again he was disrupting the Cuban regime narrative.

Tomorrrow, all around the world, including Cuba, masses are being celebrated in remembrance of Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero.

Remember them.

They killed two men, but could not kill the ideas and projects they represented. The Christian Liberation Movement continues under the leadership of Eduardo Cardet, and Rosa María Payá, Oswaldo’s daughter, has emerged as a leader in her own right within the CubaDecide campaign.

Learn the full story in David Hoffman’s definitive book on this nonviolent Cuban icon, Give Me Liberty: The True Story of Oswaldo Payá and his Daring Quest for a Free Cuba.

Notes from the Cuban Exile Quarter, July 19, 2026

Martyrs for Freedom: Remembering Oswaldo Payá and Harold Cepero

We remember, continue to demand justice, and follow their courageous example.

Vigil marking the fifth anniversary of the July 11 protests outside the Cuban Embassy in Washington, DC

The Cuban dictatorship imprisons, forcibly exiles, or kills those who nonviolently advocate for human rights reforms within the existing constitutional framework. The Castro dynasty has also engaged in and sponsored terrorism for 66 years, but before spreading terror around the world, the Castros took power in Cuba through a campaign of terrorism that included bombings, killings, kidnappings, and hijackings in the 1950s.

On July 22, 2012, Havana’s secret police murdered Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas and Harold Cepero Escalante, two heroes for democracy in the Americas. The Cuban dictatorship, and its agents of influence have continued to attempt to cover up this crime.

In 2023, following a ten year investigation, the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights confirmed that the two human rights defenders were killed by Cuban government agents.

Oswaldo Payá was sixty years old when he was assassinated by Castro regime agents on this day 14 years ago.

Oswaldo was a family man and lay Catholic from Havana, an engineer who, in September 1988, founded the Christian Liberation Movement with fellow Catholics in the El Cerro neighborhood, and over the next 23 years would carry out important campaigns to support human rights and a democratic transition in Cuba.

He would speak out against human rights breaches and demand victims’ dignity, even if it meant denouncing the United States for mistreating Al Qaeda prisoners at the Guantanamo Naval Base prison in 2002.

Oswaldo was a consistent defender of human rights, but not the only one.

Harold Cepero was 32 years old when he was extrajudicially executed alongside Oswaldo. He was from the town of Chambas in Ciego de Ávila. Harold began studying at the University of Camaguey when he was 18 years old, and in 2002, he and other students signed the Varela Project. It was a legal measure inside the existing Cuban constitution sponsored by the Christian Liberation Movement.

Oswaldo was a family man and lay Catholic from Havana, an engineer who, in September 1988, founded the Christian Liberation Movement with fellow Catholics in the El Cerro neighborhood, and over the next 23 years would carry out important campaigns to support human rights and a democratic transition in Cuba.

He would speak out against human rights breaches and demand victims’ dignity, even if it meant denouncing the United States for mistreating Al Qaeda prisoners at the Guantanamo Naval Base prison in 2002.

Oswaldo was a consistent defender of human rights, but not the only one.

Harold Cepero was 32 years old when he was extrajudicially executed alongside Oswaldo. He was from the town of Chambas in Ciego de Ávila. Harold began studying at the University of Camaguey when he was 18 years old, and in 2002, he and other students signed the Varela Project. It was a legal measure inside the existing Cuban constitution sponsored by the Christian Liberation Movement.

On May 10, 2002, Oswaldo, along with Regis Iglesias and Tony Diaz Sanchez of the Christian Liberation Movement, turned in 11,020 Varela Project petitions, and news of the petition drive was reported worldwide.

Regis Iglesias and Tony Diaz Sanchez were sentenced to long prison sentences in March 2003 following show trials, along with 73 other Cuban dissidents. Many of them had taken part in the Varela Project and, nearly eight years later, were forced into exile as an alternative to completing their prison sentences.

In spite of the crackdown, Oswaldo would turn in another 14,384 petition signatures with Freddy Martini on October 5, 2003. He would spend the next eight years campaigning for the release of his imprisoned compatriots and continuing campaigns to achieve a democratic transition in Cuba.

Ten years, two months and twelve days after turning in the first Varela Project petitions while traveling with two international visitors in Eastern Cuba on a Sunday afternoon on July 22, 2012, Oswaldo and Harold were killed. Cuban state security bumped into the car they were driving, and when the vehicles stopped, with everyone still alive in the car, they approached the driver, striking him in the temple with the butt of a pistol. Within hours, the lifeless bodies of both men would appear.

Cuba currently has over 1,300 identified political prisoners, with many more imprisoned under the Orwellian statute known as “precrime.” The dictatorship will lock you up simply because you have the potential to become a threat in the future.

Oswaldo Payá, when awarded the Sakharov prize for Freedom of Thought on December 17, 2002, spoke prophetically when he said: “The cause of human rights is a single cause, just as the people of the world are a single people.” “The talk today is of globalization, but we must state that unless there is global solidarity, not only human rights but also the right to remain human will be jeopardized.”

In the midst of the darkness, it is critical to recall the beams of light that illuminate the path to freedom and the full enjoyment of human rights in Cuba and around the world.

Oswaldo Payá, Harold Cepero, and others, both living and dead, laid the framework for the nonviolent nature of the large nationwide protests that began on July 11, 2021, which established a new before and after in Cuban history.

Observing the day 14 years ago when Oswaldo and Harold were murdered by Cuban government agents with masses in the United States, Spain, Cuba, and elsewhere on July 22, 2026.

The indictment of Raul Castro, and other Cuban officials for the February 24, 1996 shoot down of two Brothers to the Rescue planes that killed three U.S. citizens, and one U.S. resident demonstrates that there is not statute of limitations on murder.

https://notesfromthecubanexilequarter.substack.com/p/martyrs-for-freedom-remembering-oswaldo