Tag Archives: Mariela Castro

Miami’s ABC News affiliate reports: An independently organized show of gay pride ended with several arrests in Havana on Saturday afternoon. The march started in Old Havana’s Parque Central, where activists had been urged to meet at 4 p.m. Under significant police presence, some with dogs, activists and their supporters started arriving with gay flags and other rainbow-type expressions. Half …

Michael Lavers reports at the Washington Blade: The organizer of Cuba’s annual International Day Against Homophobia, Transphobia and Biphobia marches on Monday announced they have been cancelled. The marches were to have taken place in Havana on May 11 and the city of Camagüey on May 17. The National Center for Sexual Education, directed by Mariela Castro [photo], the daughter …

The Associated Press reports: Cuba’s government said Tuesday that language promoting the legalization of gay marriage will be removed from the draft of a new constitution after widespread popular rejection of the idea. Gay rights advocates had proposed eliminating the description of marriage as a union of a man and woman, changing it to the union of “two people … …

Reuters reports: The draft of Cuba’s new constitution opens the path to same-sex marriage, a government official said on Saturday, which would make the country that once persecuted homosexuals an unlikely leader in lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender rights. In the early years of Fidel Castro’s 1959 revolution, many homosexuals were sent to correctional labor camps, part of an institutionalized …

The Washington Post reports: Mariela Castro [photo], a Cuban lawmaker and daughter of Communist Party chief Raul Castro, says she will push for gay marriage to be included in a constitutional reform process expected to begin in July. The reform is expected to encompass a wide range of modernizing changes to Cuba’s 1976 constitution, which was designed for a Soviet-style …

From the Washington Blade: The daughter of Cuban President Raúl Castro on Saturday led in a march in Havana that commemorated the International Day Against Homophobia and Transphobia. Mariela Castro, director of Cuba’s National Center for Sexual Education that is known by the Spanish acronym CENESEX, joined transgender actress Candis Cayne and hundreds of others who marched from the oceanfront …

Yesterday in Cuba: Thousands marched in Havana on Saturday to support gay rights and to join a symbolic marriage ceremony organised by President Raul Castro’s daughter Mariela. Waving Cuban and rainbow-coloured flags, the marchers called for equality and marriage rights for Cuba’s lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender (LGBT) community, on the eighth National Day Against Homophobia. “(We must) ensure that …

From the editorial board of the New York Times: American officials have had few opportunities to support Cuba’s gay rights evolution and have been conflicted on how to handle Ms.[Mariela] Castro. When the Philadelphia-based Equality Forum nominated her for an award last year, American officials initially said they would not give her a visa. After the group protested, they relented. …

Next week Cuba will host an international convention of LGBT activists for the first time.  The event will be chaired by Mariela Castro, daughter of Cuban president Raul Castro and Fidel Castro’s niece. The Washington Blade reports: The sixth International Lesbian, Gay, Bisexual, Trans and Intersex Association for Latin America and the Caribbean (ILGALAC) Regional Conference will take place in …

Cuban LGBT rights activists Mariela Castro has been granted a visa to attend a Philadelphia gay rights forum after having first been denied one by the State Department. Initially not expected to receive a visa, the official said the case was “looked at again” and “the restriction on her visa has been lifted, which will allow her to travel” to …

Cuban LGBT rights activist Mariela Castro, the niece of Fidel and daughter of president Raul Castro, has been denied a visa to attend a gay rights forum in Philadelphia. Equality Forum Executive Director Malcolm Lazin said in a press release that Mariela Castro, executive director of the Cuban National Center for Sex Education (CENESEX,) several months ago accepted an invitation …

Speaking at a San Francisco event, Cuban LGBT rights activist Mariela Castro yesterday said she would vote to re-elect President Obama, were she an American. Mariela is the niece of Fidel Castro and the daughter of current Cuban president Raul Castro. “If we don’t change our patriarchal and homophobic culture … we cannot advance as a new society, and that’s …

Cuba’s leading LGBT rights advocate, Mariela Castro, is praising President Obama for his evolution on same-sex marriage. The U.S. president delivered a message that was “humane, understanding, in which he even recognizes that he too has been changing his opinion in favor of marriage, the free union of same-sex couples,” said Mariela Castro, who is Cuba’s most prominent gay rights …

The champion of Cuba’s nascent LGBT rights movement, Mariela Castro, has launched a blog. The niece of Fidel Castro and daughter of President Raul Castro, Mariela has been the public figurehead of a series of advances over the last few years. You can also follow Mariela Castro on Twitter. (Tipped by JMG reader Adam.)

Calling it a “great injustice,” today Fidel Castro told a Mexican newspaper that he accepts responsibility for Cuba’s persecution of its gay citizens, thousands of whom were rounded up and placed in internment camps during his regime. Castro said that the revolutionary government’s actions represented “a great injustice – a great injustice! – whoever committed it. If we committed it, …

Yesterday Mariela Castro lead a parade of hundreds through the streets of Havana as part of the International Day Against Homophobia. Last year Mariela’s father, Raul Castro, replaced Fidel Castro as president of Cuba. Some of the marchers played drums and others walked on stilts as they made their way down a wide avenue in the capital’s hip Vedado neighborhood, …

Yesterday Cuba celebrated the International Day Against Homophobia as Fidel Castro’s niece led revelers on a raucous conga-line through Havana. Cuban President Raul Castro’s daughter led thousands of citizens in a street dance in central Havana on Saturday to promote gay rights. Cuban Sex Education Center director Mariela Castro kicked off a programme of events promoting respect for freedom of …

Things are continuing to get better for Cuba’s gays. Cuba’s gay community celebrated unprecedented openness – and high-ranking political alliances – with a government-backed campaign against homophobia on the weekend. The meeting at a convention center in Havana’s Vedado district may have been the largest gathering of openly gay activists ever on the communist-run island. President Raul Castro’s daughter Mariela, …