London -  Cuban residents in the United Kingdom condemned the new escalation of sanctions by the United States against Cuba, and called on the British Government to comply with its own laws against Washington''s extraterritorial measures.

In a letter sent to the conservative parliamentarian and minister of State for the Americas at the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, Alan Duncan, Cubans in the UK charged that the British bank HSBC is revising the organization's account because it made a donation to the victims of the tornado that hit Havana in January 2019.

We received a communication warning us that the organization may not utilize HSBC products or services for activity involving Iran, Sudan, North Korea, Syria, the Crimea/Sevastopol Regions, or Cuba, says the letter, to which Prensa Latina had access.

In that regard, the text calls on the conservative Government to comply with its own regulations prohibiting the extraterritorial imposition of US blockade on Cuba for more than five decades.

We refer specifically to Decree 3171 approved in 1996 on the 'Protection of Trading Interests' with regards the extraterritorial legislation of the US. This legislation grants the British government the power to penalize legal and natural persons who make use of US legislation in British territory, as a measure to counteract its effects, the letter adds.

Cubans in the UK warned that on 2 May 2019, Title III of the Helms-Burton Act entered into force, specifying that US citizens and companies may file lawsuits in US Courts against Cuban or foreign companies that currently benefit from properties nationalized after the triumph of the Cuban Revolution in January 1959.

It is an unprecedented, prepotent, arrogant and threatening law, applied exclusively to Cuba, warned Cubans in UK, which thanked the British Government for preventing its application within its territory, as well as its willingness to collaborate with Cuba in projects of mutual interest. In their letter to Minister Duncan, the Cuban residents in the United Kingdom pointed out that the US blockade has caused damage to Cuba's economy for more than 900 billion dollars.