Miguel Diaz-Canel and Ebrahim Raisi in Havana, Cuba on June 15, 2023
Today, Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi met with his Cuban counterpart Miguel Diaz-Canel. "This visit reinforced our conviction that we have in Iran a friendly nation in the Middle East, with which to confide ... and talk about the most complex global issues," said Diaz-Canel, reported Nelson Acosta of the Reuters bureau in Cuba.
President Ebrahim Raisi visited the dictatorships in Venezuela and Nicaragua before arriving at the regime that spawned both of them.
In Venezuela, President Raisi met with Nicolas Maduro and " spoke about the need to confront the US and create a 'new world order' that would overturn the US-led world order that has existed since the end of the Cold War."
Nicolas Maduro and Ebrahim Raisi in Caracas on June 11, 2023
In Nicaragua, the Iranian repeated the theme "that the resistance of the peoples contributes to change in the world order and to bring an end to the hegemonic projects of the United States."
President Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo, welcomed Raisi and Iranian First Lady Jamileh-Sadat Alamolhoda at Managua's Non-Aligned Square where Ortega recalled that Nicaragua and Iran had "twin revolutions," which both triumphed in 1979 and are twinned in a permanent struggle against the Empires and their arbitrary sanctions.
Ebrahim Raisi, Daniel Ortega and his wife, Vice President Rosario Murillo in Managua on June 13, 2023.
The Castro regime has attempted to Pinkwash itself using mass organizations under its control to promote itself as pro-women and pro-gay, but the visit of President Ebrahim Raisi raises uncomfortable questions.
During President Ebrahim Raisi's administration brutality against women and gays shocked the conscience of the world.
Morality police in Iran beat Mahsa Amini, a 22-year-old Kurdish woman, to death for not complying with Tehran's hijab regulations. She was arrested on September 13, 2022 badly beaten, left in a coma, and died on September 16th. This sparked nationwide protests with tens of thousands of Iranians taking to the streets, and a brutal regime crackdown that has killed over 530 protesters, including 71 children, and over 19,763 arrested.
Mahsa Amini beaten to death by Iranian morality police for not properly wearing her hijab on Sept 16, 2022
Weeks earlier in June 2022, Iman Safari-rad was executed for sodomy. Sexual relations between two men in Iran is a hanging offense.
However, this shock and outrage did not reach the Cuban government or the official organizations that claim to represent women,and gays.
Neither the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) nor the National Center for Sex Education (Cenesex) have organized any protests during his visit to Cuba.
Havana and Tehran do share a common history of sponsoring terrorism.
Both Iran and Cuba are backing Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups that have carried out terrorism in Israel, and against Jewish people in Latin America.
Iran was involved in the "1992 bombing of the Israeli Embassy in Buenos Aires that killed 29 people; the 1994 bombing of the Jewish cultural center known by its Spanish initials as the AMIA, also in Buenos Aires that took 85 lives. " Both attacks were attributed to Hezbollah, acting as an agent of Iran. On February 13, 2016 Vice News reported that in 2011 Secretary of State Hillary Clinton was warned that the Iran backed Islamist militant group Hezbollah, was setting up an operational base in Cuba to carry out attacks in Latin America.
The relationship between the Castro dictatorship and the theocracy in Iran is a close one that stretches back to 1979, and they have unconditionally supported each other.
The U.S. State Department today recognizes four state sponsors of terrorism: Cuba, North Korea, Iran, and Syria. The dictatorship in Havana, in addition to Iran, has close relations with the other two. For example, in 2013 it was discovered that the Cuban dictatorship was shipping tons of weapons to North Korea, in violation of United Nations sanctions.
However, there are Cubans who have stood up in solidarity with the Iranian people, and against terrorism, and they are the nonviolent Cuban dissident movement inside and outside of the island.
Eduardo Cardet, National Coordinator of the Christian Liberation Movement, issued a statement on June 15, 2023 where speaking on behalf of the movement rejected the Iranian president’s visit and its purposes. He added the following description of the regime in Tehran.
”Ebrahim Raisi represents one of the most brutal regimes in the world, behind a fundamentalist religious façade serious and systematic violations of the human rights of the Persian people are committed. This regime is Intrinsically oppressive, misogynistic and intolerant of all diversity. Nothing good will come of this collaboration for our peoples. We reject Ebrahim's visit and its purposes. Enough of tyrannies!”
On November 1, 2022 a group of Cuban and Cuban-American women petitioned President Joe Biden to to remove "the murderous Iranian regime from the United Nations Commission on the Status of Women."
Human rights defenders Masih Alinejad from Iran, Carolina Barrero from Cuba, Félix Maradiaga from Nicaragua, and Leopoldo López from Venezuela gathered together to denounce the collaboration of autocrats from their respective countries on June 15, 2023.
*Mr. Acosta concluded the article repeating boiler plate regime propaganda about U.S. sanctions. This is done to avoid being expelled from Cuba by regime authorities for engaging in accurate reporting. However the claims made fly in the face of the reality that the United States is a net exporter of food to Cuba, and that it is the Castro regime's communist central planning that is the cause of shortages of food, fuel and medicine on the island. Other communist regimes suffered the same shortages prior to making internal reforms that reintroduced markets. However, this was a distraction, and not the real story behind the visit.
Reuters, June 15, 2023
Cuba, Iran presidents meet in Havana, vow to confront 'Yankee imperialism'
Nelson Acosta
Thu, June 15, 2023 at 3:33 PM EDT
By Nelson Acosta
HAVANA (Reuters) -Iranian President Ebrahim Raisi met with Cuban counterpart Miguel Diaz-Canel on Thursday, his last stop on a three-nation Latin American tour aimed at shoring up support among Latin American allies saddled, like Iran, by U.S. sanctions.
Raisi told reporters at a trade forum in Havana early on Thursday that Cuba and Iran would seek opportunities to work together in electricity generation, biotechnology, and mining, among other areas.
"The conditions and circumstances in which Cuba and Iran find themselves today have many things in common," Raisi said in a conversation with Cuban president Miguel Diaz-Canel. "Every day our relations grow stronger."
Top officials signed administrative agreements vowing to boost cooperation between the countries' ministries of justice, and customs agencies, as well as in telecommunications.
Raisi earlier this week visited with leaders of fellow oil-producer Venezuela, where he pledged to ramp up bilateral trade and expand cooperation in petrochemicals. Prior to arriving in Cuba, the Iranian president also met with Nicaragua´s Daniel Ortega in the Central American country.
"Venezuela, Nicaragua, Cuba and Iran are among the countries that have had to heroically confront sanctions (...) threats, blockades and interference by Yankee imperialism and its allies with a tenacious resistance," Diaz-Canel told his Iranian counterpart.
"This visit reinforced our conviction that we have in Iran a friendly nation in the Middle East, with which to confide ... and talk about the most complex global issues."
Asked earlier this week about Raisi's tour of Latin America, White House national security spokesperson John Kirby said the Iranian president could speak to his own agenda.
"We don’t ask countries in this hemisphere or any other to choose who they’re going to associate with or who they’re going to talk to or who they’re going to allow to visit," Kirby said. "That’s for them to speak to. We’re focused on our own national security interest in the region."
Raisi´s visit comes as Cuba also moves to bolster ties with distant, but critical, allies like Russia and China, both subject to U.S. sanctions.
Diaz-Canel last year also met with the presidents of Russia and China, firming up relations and signing deals to ease the country´s debt burden and secure aid following the devastating impacts of Hurricane Ian, which ravaged the island last fall.
Communist-run Cuba has been under a wide-reaching U.S. trade embargo since shortly after Fidel Castro´s 1959 revolution. Those restrictions, reinforced by then-U.S. President Donald Trump, have contributed to a nearly unprecedented economic crisis that has led to shortages of food, fuel and medicine.
Raisi called his visit with Iran´s key Latin American allies a "turning point" in relations.
(Reporting by Nelson Acosta; editing by Dave Sherwood and Jonathan Oatis)
https://news.yahoo.com/cuba-iran-presidents-meet-havana-193300905.html
Jerusalem Post, 15 June 2023
“Iranian President Arrives In Cuba As Part Of South America Trip”
In Venezuela, he spoke about the need to confront the US and create a “new world order” that would overturn the US-led world order that has existed since the end of the Cold War.
Published: JUNE 15, 2023 08:45
Iran’s President arrived in Cuba overnight, according to Trabajadores, a Cuban pro-government newspaper. He was met at the airport by Bruno Rodríguez Parrilla, member of the Political Bureau of the Central Committee of the Communist Party of Cuba and foreign minister. Riasi is on a five-day trip to South American countries.
In Venezuela, he spoke about the need to confront the US and create a “new world order” that would overturn the US-led world order that has existed since the end of the Cold War.
Raisi arrived at the José Martí International Airport in Havana, where he was met by Iranian Ambassador to Cuba Mohamad Hadi Sobhan. “During his stay, the distinguished visitor will hold talks with Cuban authorities and carry out other activities of interest,” the Cuban media said. Raisi was expected to meet with President Miguel Diaz-Canel on Thursday.
“The current president of Cuba was retained in his position for the second five-year term by the National Assembly of this country in April this year. Earlier in April 2018, he was elected president and succeeded Fidel Castro’s brother Raul,” the report added.
This is a major trip for Raisi and important for Iran’s global influence. “Foreign Minister Hossein Amirabdollahian, Oil Minister Javad Oji, Defense Minister Mohammad Reza Qaraei Ashtiani, Health Minister Bahram Ainullahi and Mohammad Jamshidi, political deputy of the President’s Office, are among the President’s companions on this trip,” Iran’s pro-government media said.