Guillermo Fariñas Hernández is a Cuban psychologist, journalist, and political dissident. He has spent over 11 years in prison and conducted 23 hunger strikes to protest the Cuban regime’s censorship and attacks on freedom of speech.
After serving in the military for more than a decade, Mr. Fariñas left to establish a mental health ward and adolescent clinic in Sancti Spíritus. He later became General Secretary of the Healthcare Workers’ Union and was sent to jail for the first time in 1995 after denouncing corruption within a hospital that employed him.
In 2003, he founded Cubanacan Press, an independent news agency aimed at raising awareness of the fate of political prisoners in Cuba. In 2006, Mr. Fariñas held a hunger strike to protest Internet censorship in Cuba, which he was ultimately forced to end due to its severe health consequences.
Mr. Fariñas has received numerous awards for his work, including the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought in 2010, and the Reporters Without Borders’ Cyber-Freedom Prize in 2006. He was awarded the Truman-Reagan Medal of Freedom in 2015.
