Lincoln Diaz-Balart: “Tomorrow morning approximately 60 members of this House, including the Speaker, will be sending a letter to the Nobel…”

“Tomorrow morning approximately 60 members of this House, including the Speaker, will be sending a letter to the Nobel Committee of the Norwegian Parliament, the entity that designates the winners of the Nobel Peace Prize, to nominate Leonel Morejon Almagro, the National Delegate of the Concilio Cubano, the Cuban Council, an umbrella of over 140 pro-democracy groups in Cuba, for the Nobel Peace Prize. Mr. Morejon Almagro is at this time a political prisoner at the State security prison at Villa Marista in Havana. Mr. Morejon Almagro is a 31-year-old attorney who was dismissed from his position as a lawyer because of his defense of numerous political prisoners in court. In 1986 he founded NaturPaz, Nature Peace, a peaceful environmental group that was prohibited by the Cuban dictatorship. Shortly after its founding, NaturPaz supported a ban on all nuclear weapons testing in the world. In 1991 he was detained by Cuban State Security for organizing a peaceful demonstration in front of the UNESCO office in Havana to protest the Iraqi invasion of Kuwait and the environmental destruction that it caused. In 1986 and 1987, Mr. Morejon Almagro, at great personal risk, taught ecology and pacifism to students in school and criticized Cuban involvement in the Angolan and Ethiopian conflicts. He played a decisive role this year in the formation of Concilio Cubano, as I stated, a coalition of over 140 peaceful pro-democracy organizations in Cuba.”