The Maduro regime’s decision to halt the referendum campaign and further persecute the opposition is a direct assault on democracy and the fundamental rights of the Venezuelan people. 

Rule of law, judicial institutions, independent media and civil society have been assailed, while opposition leaders are repressed and imprisoned.  The laws passed by the National Assembly are systematically ignored.  

According to reports, Berta Soler, the iconic leader of the Ladies in White, has been arrested and charged with bogus crimes, and stripped of her ability to travel.  

President Obama's attendance at a baseball game, gleeful handshakes with the Cuban people's oppressors, and seeming apologetic tone with continued requests for "indulgence" were sickening to those who know the true malevolence of the Castro regime that is responsible for the deaths of activists Oswaldo Paya, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, Laura Pollan, and Juan Wilfredo Soto Garcia, Harold Cepero, and Wilman Villar Mendoza during the Obama presidency alone.  

Regrettably, President Obama's planned travel to Cuba is hardly a surprise. Instead, it is the latest addition to the litany of concessions to dictators that have come to characterize this administration. 

Like his approach to dictators in other corners of the globe, President Obama’s policy toward Cuba has been one of coddling the oppressors while sidelining the oppressed pro-democracy and human rights activists struggling for change.