April 26, 2022
Thirty photographs of the dear friend of Cuba, Alicia Jrapko, will be exhibited this Friday, April 29, at 10:00 a.m., at the headquarters of the Union of Journalists of Cuba in Havana, as a tribute to the former coordinator in the United States of the International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity and Co-Chair of the National Network of Solidarity with Cuba in that country. The exhibit will be up until the middle of May.
The publication Resumen Latinoamericano, the International Committee for Peace, Justice and Dignity for the Peoples, the Network in Defense of Humanity and the Union of Cuban Journalists (UPEC), are hosting the opening event in Havana, which, according to Graciela Ramirez Cruz, head of Resumen’s Cuba bureau, is “a necessary and essential tribute”.
Alicia, who passed away on January 11, was born on January 1, 1953 in Merlo, province of Buenos Aires and grew up and was educated in Córdoba, where she studied journalism.
For several years she lived in Mexico and then settled in the United States, where she became involved in progressive struggles and, in the early 1990s, in solidarity work with Cuba through the Community Organization IFCO-Pastors for Peace.
In 2000, according to an article published in Cuba en Resumen, Alicia was at the forefront of the battle for the return of Elian Gonzalez to his father in Cuba, but her most prominent work was in the struggle for the release of the five anti-terrorists unjustly imprisoned for monitoring the activity of anti-Cuban groups who were planning actions against the island from U.S. territory.
Alicia also led the International Committee for the Freedom of the Five in the United States and managed to get trade unionists, religious leaders, congressmen, jurists, intellectuals, actors and artists to join the campaign for the release of Fernando González, Gerardo Hernández, Ramón Labañino, Antonio Guerrero and René González.
Jrapko’s work and political commitment earned her several distinctions, among them the Felix Elmuza Medal, awarded by UPEC, the Coat of Arms of the city of Holguin and the Friendship Medal awarded by the Council of State of the Republic of Cuba at the proposal of the Cuban Institute of Friendship with the Peoples.
Also a supporter of Venezuela’s Bolivarian Revolution, since 2011 she served as co-chair of the National Network on Cuba. In addition, she created the U.S. chapter of the Network in Defense of Humanity and was a member of its General Secretariat.
In her last project, despite being ill, Alicia was co-chair of the Nobel Committee of the Henry Reeve Cuban Medical Brigade.
Taken from Cubaperiodistas.