Havana, May 2 (RHC)-- "Thanks to the intellectuals from all over the world who give prestige with their signatures to our long and unwavering fight against the blockade. The REDH, founded in other threatening days for Cuba, knows very well the seriousness of the siege imposed on us by the empire". 

This is how Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel extended through Twitter his gratitude to the voices of the Network in Defense of Humanity (REDH), which endorsed a message demanding the end of the economic, commercial and financial blockade of the United States against the archipelago.

Published on International Workers' Day, the communication appeals to lovers of peace, justice, and international law to denounce the unprecedented aggression that the blockade has meant for more than 60 years.

Among the signatories are the former presidents Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, José (Pepe) Mujica, Evo Morales Ayma, and Fernando Lugo Méndez; personalities such as Noam Chomsky, Adolfo Pérez Esquivel, Elena Poniatowska, Danny Glover, Ignacio Ramonet, and several organizations and institutions join in denouncing the cruel policy, which the Trump administration has intensified with more than 240 measures, many of them amid the scourge of the covid-19.

The document describes the siege as a crime of genocide and a crime against humanity, according to the Geneva Convention of 1948 and the Rome Statute of the International Criminal Court, respectively. 

It also recalls the economic and social consequences it has generated for the people of the archipelago, and calls for the fulfillment of the ethical duty to denounce such injustice and demand that the principles of peace, international legality, multilateralism and mutual respect be imposed, as the only way to guarantee the survival of the human species on the planet.