The mayor of Miami, Francis Suárez, declared persona non grata the renowned Cuban singer Haila María Mompié, who is in the city where she has a concert scheduled for this week.
Mompié is facing in Miami a boycott promoted by some media and radical sectors of the Cuban exile for having attended the funeral services for Fidel Castro in 2016 and having declared her sympathy for the former Cuban president.
“We don’t want to have in our city a person who offends us in this way. It is disgusting that they use our freedoms against us, and return to Cuba talking like that about a dictator who has killed thousands of people…,” said Mayor Suárez in statements for Telemundo.
The singer once said about Fidel, “I love him with all my heart,” in addition to kissing him on the cheek during an official televised event.
Mompié has scheduled for next Thursday a concert at the Studio 60 Nightclub, located in the Miami neighborhood of Allapattah, but according to Telemundo, there is a boycott on the social media to suspend it.
Haila en Miami: “Aquí hay mucho sabor a Cuba… también mucha añoranza”
During her current stay in the United States, Haila María Mompié is promoting her latest album Con todo respeto: Haila canta a Armando Manzanero, “which has so many beautiful songs with which many Cubans and Latinos identify themselves. Armando Manzanero belongs to a group of singer-songwriters who marked the lives of many people,” the Cuban singer explained to OnCuba.
Recently the organizers of a concert in La Vegas canceled the show persuaded by the pressure of part of Miami’s Cuban exile to boycott the artist.
In June 2019, the city of Hialeah, neighboring Miami, also canceled a show with renowned reggaeton musicians Jacob Forever, Señorita Dayana and El Micha for the July 4 Independence Day concert.
EFE / OnCuba