Regis Iglesias Ramirez is a Cuban activist and a former prisoner of conscience.
He became a member of a dissident group, the Christian Liberation Movement (MCL), in 1989. The MCL was founded by the late Cuban activist Oswaldo Paya, who died under mysterious circumstances in 2012. Ramirez became the MCL’s spokesman and a member of its Coordination Council in 1996. He was nominated as a candidate for Cuban Parliament in 1997, but his candidacy, along with those of his colleagues from the MCL, was rejected by the regime’s electoral authorities.
He is a member of the National Executive of the Varela Project, a civil society initiative advocating for free elections and improved human rights in Cuba. In 2003, Ramirez was among 75 nonviolent dissidents and activists arrested by the Cuban regime in what became known as the Black Spring. He was sentenced to 18 years in prison for crimes against the state. In 2010, he was released in a deal brokered by the Roman Catholic Church and sent into exile in Spain, where he remains as a political refugee.
Ramirez has published several books of poetry and contributed to various literary anthologies. His articles have appeared in various publications in Spain and elsewhere. Since the mid-1990s, he has been associated with the Independent Press Bureau of Cuba, the New Cuban Press Agency and the Manuel Marquez Sterling Society of Independent Journalists in Cuba.
Intervention: GS13
