Mariela Castro to Visit USA

Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro and director of CENESEX (AFP/File)

(AFP)

 

HAVANA — Mariela Castro, the daughter of Cuban President Raul Castro, has been granted a visa to attend an academic conference in San Francisco later this month, a spokesman said Wednesday.

"Yes, they granted it (the visa) and pretty quickly," said the spokesman for the National Center for Sexual Education, which Mariela Castro heads.

The US State Department would neither confirm nor deny that Castro had been given the visa, citing US privacy laws.

Castro, 50, will attend the annual conference of the Latin American Studies Association on May 23-26 in San Francisco, and sources said she would be on a panel tackling the issue of sexual diversity.

As head of the National Center for Sexual Education, Castro is currently leading a national campaign against homophobia in Cuba.