Guillermo Fariñas: Lukashenka regime is the last communist dictatorship in Europe

The legendary Cuban dissident received the European Parliament's Sakharov Prize.

Guillermo Fariñas was awarded with the prize in 2010, but the authorities allowed him to travel abroad only this year.

The award ceremony was broadcast live on the website of the European Parliament.

The Cuban dissident spoke about Cuba in his acceptance speech and mentioned Belarus. Guillermo Fariñas said he had visited several European countries and talked to the people who had struggled and continued to struggle against dictatorships.

“I met with Belarusian opposition leaders. We found a common language and agreed on cooperation. I was impressed by the feeling of brotherhood and fellowship we had at the meeting with Belarusians,” the Cuban dissident said.

Guillermo Fariñas called the Lukashenka regime “the last communist dictatorship of Europe” and urged members of the European Parliament not to accept its existence. He reminded about a danger of cooperation with authoritarian regimes.

“A dictatorship is like an infection. It can be passed from one country to another,” Guillermo Fariñas said.

The dissident noted that Europe should not tacitly approve the authoritarian regimes near its borders and stand aside from struggling against them.

“I've often heard the expression 'realpolitik' in the last few days. I'd like to remind that the real politics must focus on people.

People are the object and the subject of the real politics. If people are persecuted, cannot express their opinion freely and found parties and organisations, it has no relation both to reality and politics,” Guillermo Fariñas said to the applauding audience.

The dissident said the names of the most prominent Cuban political prisoners and stressed that their release to a great extent depended on a position of Western countries.

Guillermo Fariñas visited Poland in early June. He met with 2010 presidential candidate Andrei Sannikov, editor-in-chief of charter97.org Natallia Radzina, coordinators of the civil campaign European Belarus Zmitser Badnarennka, Uldzimir Kobets and Aliaksandr Atroshchankau, youth leader and journalist Yauhen Afnahel. Guillermo Fariñas gave an interview to charter97.org and sent words of support to Belarusian political prisoners.

Guillermo Fariñas is expected to go from Brussels to the United States. He plans to have meetings with American politicians in Washington and Atlanta. In Miami, the city that became the centre of the Cuban opposition in exile, he will meet with his countrymen who had to leave the country. Guillermo Fariñas will then return to Cuba to continue struggling against the Castro regime.