Interviews with Horacio Julio Piña Borrego

We have been denied freedom. I went to prison for expressing myself, which was risky. I want people to be able to express themselves, be it in my favor or against what I represent, but that we can freely express ourselves as we do in any country where there is democracy.

What I would say is very short: do not stop fighting, that is the only chance they have. The only way out is to continue the fight even if there is repression, even if you go to jail, get deported, or the family suffers. Such suffering is shorter than to continuing to live under repression and that burden of the totalitarian system, as it exists in North Korea and in Cuba. Do not leave the fight. Continue.

Horacio Julio Piña Borrego, the son of an ardent communist, was born in Las Martinas, Cuba in 1966. Horacio first became active in the democratic opposition as a member of the Cuban Pro-Human Rights Party Affiliated with the Sakharov Foundation; in 1999, he became a provincial delegate for the organization in his hometown of Pinar del Rio. Through his activism, he also collected signatures for the Varela Project, an initiative that petitioned the regime to hold open elections and expand civil liberties.

In March 2003, Horacio was detained along with 74 other nonviolent dissidents in a massive government crackdown known as the Black Spring. He received a summary trial in which he was sentenced to 20 years in prison. Horacio was placed in solitary confinement until August 2004, and was subjected to physical and psychological torture throughout his time in prison. In October 2010, the Catholic Church and the Spanish government negotiated the release of the 75 and Horacio went into exile with his family. He lived in Spain as a political refugee until 2011, before settling in the United States.

Horacio is active in the fight for Cuban freedom and democracy; he serves as the Managing Director of the Cuban Institute for Freedom of Expression and Press in Florida.