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“We must live with courage and honesty, we have to speak the truth about what is happening in our country,” asserted the Cuban-American young woman who on Monday ran onto the baseball field calling for freedom for Cuba during the first game of the island's team at the Pre-Olympic Americas Tournament, held in Florida.
“Cubans, do not be afraid, because you have only one life,” also said in a message to her fellow citizens Kiele Alessandra Cabrera, 22, who at one point during the game between Cuba and Venezuela ran onto the diamond holding a sign that read “Free Cuba.”
After a few minutes in which part of the crowd gathered at The Ballpark of the Palm Beaches, in West Palm Beach, applauded and cheered the girl's gesture, police officers proceeded to remove her from the venue.
In statements to a reporter from the Univisión 23 channel, Cabrera said that this was a way to attract attention "to talk about all the things happening in Cuba, all the injustices occurring in Cuba."
In fact, Cuban television was broadcasting on Monday afternoon the debut of the national team against its counterpart from Venezuela —which ended in a defeat for the island of five runs to six— in the qualifying tournament for Tokyo 2020.
"I saw someone going for a ball, and something inside my mind said: now is the time, go run, and I started to run," the young woman recounted. "I was very nervous, but I wasn't afraid, because I knew it was something very necessary."
“In this free country, I am arrested and then I have the opportunity to defend myself; here in this country, there is justice, so... no, I was not afraid,” he insisted.
According to Cabrera, no charges have been filed against him so far; he is simply prohibited from returning to the stadium. The young woman returned to Miami on Monday night.
Regarding the reaction of the baseball players on the field, he said, "they were surprised (...). But, honestly, they looked at me and (...) it was like they accepted what I was doing."
"And some were excited," he noted. "There were two Venezuelan players who were excited. (...) They were with me and the message I was giving to the audience."
Cabrera—who studied at the University of Florida—acknowledged that before stepping onto the field, he thought about the historic game between Team Cuba and the Baltimore Orioles in 1999, when a Cuban made a gesture similar to his and ended up being attacked by some of the athletes from the island.
On the afternoon of this Monday, nothing like that happened. The girl left to the applause of many of her countrymen in the stadium.
During this first match in the quest for the only ticket available for the Tokyo Olympic Games, there were only a few moments when the shouts of "Homeland and Life," "Down with the dictatorship," and "Díaz-Canel, son of a bitch" could be heard.
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