Interviews with Normando Hernández

There were problems all the time with the government. They always harassed us, watching us constantly, we were under stress every day, and there was a time when we had to take a deep breath to gain the strength to keep on going. Because the first thing that the government did was to choke us financially. I couldn’t get a job; neither could my wife, who has a Bachelor’s degree in Math and Labor Information Systems. We had no source of income.

My mom was also fired and we were really having a bad time. We barely had clothes to wear and money to feed ourselves. Many days we went to bed with only a glass of milk and a piece of bread in our stomachs. This was because the Cuban government was not only mistreating me, an individual opposed to its political system and ideology, but also members of my family.

And this is very painful because they were also mistreating my mother, my wife, the people who I love, and the people who surround me. I was suffering because of my way of thinking. But my family always supported me a lot and I remember what my mom said to me: “Son, I go to bed hungry and I wake up hungry, but it’s better to stay hungry and if you go to prison because of your way of thinking, I would let it happen, but you can’t go as a common criminal.”

These are memories, very painful memories, really harsh and strong memories that my family suffered. Every time I think about it… it’s not easy.

Normando Hernández is an independent journalist who has dedicated his career to providing alternative sources of news and information in Cuba. In 1999, he co-founded the Cuban Foundation for Human Rights, and in 2000, he established the Camaguey Association of Journalists, the first independent organization in Camaguey province since 1959. Declared a “prisoner of conscience” by Amnesty International following Cuba’s “Black Spring” (2003–2010), during which dozens of dissidents and journalists were imprisoned for their activism, Mr. Hernández was exiled to Spain in 2010 and has since resettled in the United States.

The author of numerous articles and publications, including the book El Arte de la Tortura: Memorias de un Ex Prisionero de Conciencia Cubano (The Art of Torture: Memories of a Former Cuban Prisoner of Conscience, 2010), he has received several journalism and human rights awards, including the Norwegian Writers Association’s Freedom of Expression Award (2009), the PEN American Center’s PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award (2007), and a special mention by the Inter-American Press Association for excellence in journalism (2003). Mr. Hernández is currently a Reagan-Fascell Fellow at the National Endowment for Democracy, where he is examining the Cuban communications monopoly and considering strategies by which independent journalists may combat totalitarianism.