The Cuban opposition figure Rosa María Payá, founder of the initiative Cuba Decide, will receive the XIII FAES Freedom Award this Friday in Madrid, which she shares with the widow of the Russian opposition leader Alexéi Navalny, Yulia Navalnaya, and the Iranian activist Masih Alinejad.
The delivery to Payá places the Cuban civic resistance on the same symbolic level as that of Russia and Iran in the European context.
The board of the FAES Foundation, chaired by former Spanish Prime Minister José María Aznar, unanimously approved the award, which was granted ex aequo, as announced in July. FAES highlighted the achievements of the three honorees in defense of freedom, human dignity, and the rule of law.
Payá is the daughter of dissident Oswaldo Payá Sardiñas, whose death in a traffic accident in July 2012 was attributed by the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights (IACHR) to Cuban state agents. She is also a commissioner of the IACHR for the period 2026-2029, making her the first person of Cuban origin to join that organization.
"He has dedicated his life to the peaceful defense of freedom and democracy in Cuba. His perseverance in defending civil liberties, political pluralism, and human rights has helped keep alive the hope for a free, open, and democratic Cuba," emphasized FAES.
The award comes at a time of immense pressure on the dictatorship. An international coalition of Cuban opposition organizations presented a petition this week in Miami with over 1,000 signatures urging democracies to vote against or abstain in that vote.
The human rights organization Prisoners Defenders recorded 1,351 political prisoners at the end of September 2026, including 40 individuals who were detained while they were minors.
The recognition of Payá comes 12 days before the UN General Assembly votes on the annual resolution calling for an end to the U.S. embargo on Cuba, scheduled for October 28. In 2025, that resolution received 165 votes in favor, seven against, and 12 abstentions.
The other two award recipients
Yulia Navalnaya leads the advisory council of the Anti-Corruption Foundation established by her husband, Alexei Navalny who died in a prison in the Arctic on February 16 of that year, and currently lives in exile in Germany.
Masih Alinejad, an Iranian-American journalist, launched the My Stealthy Freedom campaign in 2014 and currently lives under FBI protection following multiple kidnapping and assassination attempts attributed to the Tehran regime.
The FAES (Foundation for Analysis and Social Studies) is a non-profit private organization and a think tank that works to promote ideas based on political, intellectual, and economic freedom, democracy, the rule of law, and the free market.
In 2009, the FAES Prize for Freedom was established to recognize international personalities distinguished in the promotion and defense of democracy and freedom.
Some of the award winners from previous editions are Mario Vargas Llosa, Luis Almagro, and Juan Guaidó.
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