Lester Luis Gonzalez Penton

Independent journalist Léster Luis González Pentón was the youngest of the 75 opposition members arrested during the “Black Spring” in Cuba in March 2003. He was sentenced to 20 years’ imprisonment but was released, along with five other independent journalists, on 12 July 2010. The journalists were reunited with their families in Havana before boarding overnight flights to Spain. They arrived in Madrid on 13 July 2010. The Spanish foreign ministry is reported to have helped broker the surprise deal under which the Cuban government has agreed to release all 52 dissidents imprisoned since the March 2003 crackdown.

According to our information, Léster Luis González Pentón was held at the Prisión de Jóvenes, Santa Clara, where undertook a number of hunger strikes in protest against poor prison conditions. He reportedly had a hernia operation in prison hospital in early 2008.

(Information courtesy of PEN International)