14ymedio, Yoani Sánchez, Havana, 4 December 2023 — The demand for “a Palestine free from Israeli occupation” and a congratulation to health personnel on Latin American Medicine Day are the most recent publications on the Facebook accounts of the Federation of Cuban Women (FMC) and the National Sexual Education Center (Cenesex). According to both entities, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel’s visit to Iran, a country with one of the most misogynistic and homophobic policies in the world, does not deserve criticism or condemnation.
The silence of the FMC and Cenesex is hardly surprising. With a selective view when denouncing attacks on women and the LGBTI community, these two entities have a long history of pointing out the slightest hint of violence in Western democracies and remaining silent, with complicity, about the young Iranians hanged for having a homosexual relationship. If gender aggression occurs in New York or Berlin they will amplify it, but if the setting is Tehran or Moscow it will not be mentioned in the newspapers controlled by the Cuban Communist Party (PCC).
The official press ignored, for example, the importance of the “Women, Life, Freedom” protests, which began as a demand for women’s rights and went on to become a social movement seeking the end of the ayatollah regime, the economic opening of the country and the establishment of a political model of respect for civic freedoms.
The trigger for these historic demonstrations, which filled the Iranian streets with young people willing to do anything to shake off authoritarian and hypocritical rulers, was also little me
