Ariel Hidalgo - writer
- Artist/Author/Producer: Ariel Hidalgo
- Confronting Bodies: Cuban government under Fidel Castro
- Dates of action: 1980-88
- Location: Cuba
- Description of the Art Work
- The manuscript "Cuba, the Marxist State and the New Class" is a document
describing the political situation in Cuba. It was never published,
however, Hidalgo intended for it to be sent abroad and circulated
throughout Cuban exile communities.
- Description of incident
- In 1980, secret agents searching Hidalgo's home found a manuscript
entitled "Cuba, the Marxist State and the New Class". They did not
approve of its "counter-revolutionary" contents and the high school
teacher was arrested and sentenced to eight years imprisonment. He was
placed in La Cabana prison in the death row section where he spent a year
and twenty days in an unlit cell, barely big enough for his body, hearing
the screams of others being tortured. He served the remainder of his
term in the political prisoners' section.
- Results of incident
- Hidalgo was released in 1988. He now resides in Miami, Florida where he
has set up a Cuban human rights information center.
Source: "Castro's Final Hour", Andres Oppenheimer
