HAVANA, Dec. 28 (UPI) — Cuba’s National Assembly banned using Fidel Castro‘s name and likeness for public places to honor one of the late leader’s dying wishes to prevent the rise of a cult of personality.
Granma, the Cuban government’s official media agency, said the law bans the use of Castro’s name “to designate institutions, plazas, parks, avenues, streets and other public places, as well as any type of decoration, recognition or honorary title.”
The law also bans using his likeness “to erect monuments, busts, statues, commemorative strips and other similar forms of homage.”
The National Assembly passed the prohibition on Tuesday citing 1959’s Law No. 174, which bans monuments, statues and busts honoring national personalities. Castro died in late November.
Castro’s name could be used in the future to establish institutions that will study Castro’s “invaluable trajectory in the history of the nation.”
Cuba’s industrial sector is also banned from using Castro’s name and likeness on commercial merchandise but Cuban artists “inspired by Fidel” will be allowed to use him in the arts including music, literature, dance and cinema.
“Fidel will continue to be an icon in the struggles of our people to preserve our unity, our independence, our sovereignty and our socialism,” Cuba’s Secretary of the Council of State Homero Acosta said during Tuesday’s parliamentary session.
“In presenting this bill that honors the memory of our historic leader, whom our people have raised to immortality, we do it with the spirit that his example, his work and his ideals will be as eternal as the stone in which his ashes rest.”
