Hector Palacios Ruiz

Sentenced to 25 years in Ciudad de la Habana.

Hector Palacios, (62). A dissident since the late 1980s, Palacios founded the Democratic Solidarity Party in 1993. Palacios is one of the leaders of the Varela Project, a high-profile effort seeking democratic reform. The Cuban political police detained Hector Palacios Ruiz on various occasions. He was arrested on January 9, 1997 because he asserted to the foreign press that Fidel Castro had failed to fulfill his promise to promote democracy and respect for human rights as stipulated in the Declaration of the VI Iberoamerican Summit in Viña del Mar, Chile. Palacios is the President of Partido Solidaridad Democratica (PSD) and a member of the National Coordinating Council of Concilio Cubano. Amnesty International has declared him a prisoner of conscience since January 29, 1997.