The Cuban-American congressman Mario Díaz-Balart received the Champion of Freedom Democracy Award 2026 from the National Endowment for Democracy (NED) on Wednesday during a ceremony held at the Freedom Tower in Miami.
The Republican legislator expressed his gratitude on X for receiving such a high honor in an emblematic place that welcomed so many families fleeing from communist tyranny.
"During my years of service in Congress, I worked to ensure that those fighting for freedom have a steadfast ally in the United States. This commitment is now especially urgent in our own hemisphere, where generations of Cubans, Venezuelans, and Nicaraguans have shown tremendous courage and extraordinary resilience in the face of decades of authoritarian repression," he said.
During the ceremony, the politician dedicated a significant part of his speech to defending the need to maintain U.S. support for those facing authoritarian regimes. "Freedom is fragile," he warned the attendees, and added, "Those who are in that struggle need to know they are not alone."
According to the report from CubaNet, Díaz-Balart argued that NED programs operate in environments where the U.S. federal government cannot act directly, and he linked them to both democratic principles and national security reasons.
He pointed out that those living in the United States might take for granted the freedoms that other societies have lost, even after long periods of stability. As an example, he recalled that at protests held in Cuba and Iran, American flags have been seen, which he views as a symbol of the hopes that many protesters place in that country.
The choice of venue carried explicit symbolic weight: the Tower of Freedom served as a center for Cuban refugees between 1962 and 1974, popularly known as "The Refuge," and welcomed hundreds of thousands of people fleeing the revolutionary regime. Díaz-Balart, whose family left Cuba in 1959, noted that receiving the award at that location held special meaning for him.
The event included messages from Venezuelan opposition leader María Corina Machado and former Colombian president Álvaro Uribe, who highlighted the congressman's performance on Latin American issues.
Machado thanked Díaz-Balart for his support of Venezuelan political prisoners and recalled the presidential elections on July 28, 2024, which are questioned due to electoral fraud. "Thank you for your friendship. And above all, thank you for being a true friend of Venezuela," he expressed.
Uribe, for his part, recalled that Díaz-Balart arrived in the House of Representatives in 2002, the same year he took office as president of Colombia, and highlighted his role in bipartisan support for relations between the two countries. "We need a stable democracy in the region," he stated.
The event also featured the panel "Voices of Freedom in the Americas," with the participation of Cuban activist Ninoska Pérez Castellón, Venezuelan Ernesto Ackerman, Colombian Fabio Andrade, and Nicaraguan Berta Valle, moderated by former ambassador Liliana Ayalde, a member of the NED board of directors.
Peter Roskam, chairman of the NED board and former congressman, linked the honoree's commitment to his family history: "Mario Díaz-Balart knows from his family's experience what tyranny takes away from people, and why the hope for freedom endures."
Díaz-Balart shares the award with Democratic Senator Chris Coons, who received it on September 10 in Mount Vernon, Virginia, during the main ceremony of the Democracy Awards 2026.
In that same event, the NED recognized Cuban activists Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, Maykel Castillo Pérez, and Félix Navarro with the Democracy Award for Freedom of Expression; Castillo Pérez and Navarro were still imprisoned in Cuba at that time.
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