In December, 2002, Oswaldo Payá received the Sakharov Prize for Freedom of Thought from the European Parliament. “The heroic Cuban civic fighters, the citizens who sign the Varela Project, are not carrying arms,” he said. “We do not have a single weapon.” They had pencils, a petition, and a wheezing old photocopy machine.
(Olivier Morin/AFP/Getty Images)
In 2003, Cuba’s state security arrested and imprisoned 75 of Oswaldo’s activists and independent journalists. They were given prison terms of up to 28 years for nothing more than collecting signatures. Oswaldo was not arrested, but subjected to a different torment, a relentless psychological warfare. The threats he dreaded most were conveyed in exactly the same words, “You will not outlive Fidel.” He confided to a friend, “I see very few chances of getting out alive.”
(Courtesy of Ofelia Acevedo)
In 2006, a wall near Oswaldo’s house was painted with a threat warning that dissent is treason.
