Bernardo Arévalo Padrón was arrested in August 1997 and charged with “insulting and contemptuous behavior” towards then-President Fidel Castro, for which he was sentenced to six years in prison. He was released in 2003 after the completion of his term. He was arrested again on September 6, 2014, and briefly detained for his writings in the opposition newspaper, El Cubano Libre, de Hoy. According to reports, the police threatened to give him a four-year prison sentence if he did not leave Cuba. Padrón refused and declared that he will never leave Cuba. Arévalo was also arrested and detained for eight hours in February 2010.
Case History
Bernardo Arévalo Padrón was working as a railroad engineer when he became a member of a human rights association that was not recognized by the state. He later became a journalist, and in 1996, he founded Linea Sur Press, a small, privately run and independent press agency based in Cienfuegos. He has served since then both as a journalist and the director of this agency, which he created with the goal of making the Cuban public aware of the ways in which their government was violating their fundamental rights.
Bernardo Arévalo Padrón is also an Honorary Member of the English, Catalan, Peruvian and Canadian PEN Centers. He is one of the 2003 recipients of the PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award.