Leonel Grave de Peralta

Leonel Grave de Peralta (born May 30, 1976) is a Cuban activist and dissident. He was an active member of the Christian Liberation Movement, Varela Project, and Director of the Independent Bartolomé Massó Library. He was one of the approximately 75 dissidents arrested, tried, and convicted in 2003 as part of the Cuban government's Black Spring. Before his imprisonment, he was a multitasking threat to the Castro dictatorship. As a member of the Christian Liberation Movement, Grave de Peralta collected over 100 signatures for the Varela Project's pro-democracy campaign. He had a circulation record of over 700 book loans despite restrictions on independent libraries. After spending a year in Madrid, he moved to Lancaster, Pennsylvania, where he plans to stay until Cuba receives the freedom he initially had fought for: freedom to learn, freedom to worship, freedom to enjoy their inalienable human rights.