Cuban political prisoner honored for upholding religious freedom
Cuban author and artist Armando Valladares received a medal from the Becket Fund for Religious Liberty on Thursday, May 12 in New York for choosing to stand up for religious liberty.
A former political prisoner, Valladares was awarded the Canterbury Medal, the most prestigious award given by the organization.
Valladares was imprisoned when he was 23 because he would not put a sign on his desk that expressed support to Fidel Castro. He refused to say the words "I am with Fidel Castro," and throughout his incarceration he still did not utter them. He also refused to sign a document admitting he was wrong and the Revolution was right, which led to him being brutally tortured.
"When I was 23 years old, I refused to do something that seemed at the time very small. I refused to say the words: 'I am with Fidel Castro," he said at the awarding ceremony. "After years of torture and watching many of my cellmates die, I still refused to say those words."
His defiance cost him a 30-year sentence in prison. He endured eight years in solitary confinement and many years in a labor camp. He would not wear the prison uniform while he was serving time, thus becoming a "plantado." He went through hunger strikes that adversely affected his health and caused him to be paralyzed for years.
While enduring hardship in prison, Valladares painted and wrote poems using whatever material he had on hand. His wife smuggled his works outside the country and had them published to critical acclaim.
In 1982, after spending 22 years in jail, Valladares was released, primarily due to a strong international campaign for his freedom.
As he accepted the Canterbury Medal, he recalled how God allowed him to stand up for what is right.
"I'm not an extraordinary man. In fact, I'm quite ordinary, but God chose me to be something quite extraordinary," he said.
He was instrumental in the release of many political prisoners under Castro's regime when he became U.S. Ambassador to the United Nations Human Rights Commission in 1986.
After his release, Valladares wrote a book entitled, "Against All Hope: A Memoir of Life in Castro's Gulag." It became a New York Times bestseller and was translated into 18 languages.
