Miguel Galvan Gutierrez

Miguel Galván Gutiérrez was released from prison in Cuba and forced into exile in Spain in September 2010. His release was part of a mass amnesty for “Black Spring” dissidents, brokered by the Catholic Church and the Spanish foreign ministry.

Galván, an independent trade unionist, mechanical engineer and journalist with the independent news agency Havana Press, was arrested during the "Black Spring" crackdown on free expression in Cuba in March 2003. He was tried under Article 91 of the penal code, which imposes lengthy prison sentences or death for those who act against "the independence or the territorial integrity of the state." In April 2003, he was sentenced to 26 years in prison, which he was serving at Agüica Prison in western Matanzas province.

Engineer and holder of several post-graduate degrees, Miguel Galván Gutiérrez joined the independent Engineers and Architects Institute after losing his job in 1999 because of his political ideas. He was president of the organisation until February 2002. At the same time he worked as an independent journalist for the news agency Havana Press, one of the ten news agencies belonging to the Nueva Prensa Cubana press group. At Gutiérrez’s trial, more than 100 security agents surrounded the courthouse to prevent any dissident demonstrations. The journalist’s poor state of health, following an operation to his right hand and arm were rejected as reasons to spare him prison. He was extremely weakened by successive hunger strikes in protest at his prison conditions as well as spells in an “isolation cell”, used to punish inmates for “insolence” or “resistance”.

(Information courtesy of Reporters Sans Frontières)