Elizardo Sánchez Santa Cruz-Pacheco (Santiago de Cuba, 29 June 1944) is a former philosophy professor at the

University of Havana The University of Havana or (UH, ''Universidad de La Habana'') is a university located in the Vedado district of Havana, the capital of the Republic of Cuba. Founded on January 5, 1728, the university is the oldest in Cuba, and one of the firs ...

, president of the Cuban Commission for National Reconciliation and Human Rights (CCDHRN), a

human rights Human rights are moral principles or normsJames Nickel, with assistance from Thomas Pogge, M.B.E. Smith, and Leif Wenar, 13 December 2013, Stanford Encyclopedia of PhilosophyHuman Rights Retrieved 14 August 2014 for certain standards of hu ...

organisation founded in 1987 whose work has been recognized internationally by receiving the

Human Rights Watch Human Rights Watch (HRW) is an international non-governmental organization, headquartered in New York City, that conducts research and advocacy on human rights. The group pressures governments, policy makers, companies, and individual human ...

prize in 1991 and the Human Rights Prize of the

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in 1996. A member of the coordination council of the Cuban Patriotic Union, which has been described by the

United States The United States of America (U.S.A. or USA), commonly known as the United States (U.S. or US) or America, is a country primarily located in North America. It consists of 50 U.S. state, states, a Washington, D.C., federal district, five ma ...

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as the "largest group of Cuban opposition", the organization pursues a peaceful opposition to the repression of civil liberties in Cuba. As a notable

dissident A dissident is a person who actively challenges an established political or religious system, doctrine, belief, policy, or institution. In a religious context, the word has been used since the 18th century, and in the political sense since the 20th ...

and human rights activist in Cuba, he has been declared numerous times to be a prisoner of conscience since 1989. He has become over thirty years a worldwide reference for human rights organizations and international press about the state of human rights in the island nation and the situation of prisoners of conscience.

Biography

Prisoner of Conscience

According to a 1989

International Amnesty Amnesty International (also referred to as Amnesty or AI) is an international non-governmental organization focused on human rights, with its headquarters in the United Kingdom. The organization says it has more than ten million members and su ...

report, Elizardo Sánches was detained in April 1980 and sentenced to six years in prison, charged with spreading "enemy propaganda". He was set free on 29 December 1985 but was arrested again, along with two other members of CCDHRN, in September 1986 and imprisoned without formal charges or trial until he was released in May 1987.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Sánchez, Elizardo Cuban activists Cuban dissidents Human rights in Cuba 1944 births Living people