In 1993 I was sentenced to spend the next 8 years of my life in a Cuban prison. My only crime was to write and distribute propaganda against the Cuban regime, a communist dictatorship that has been in power for the last 54 years. It is controlling the whole nation in every aspect, without permitting the slimmest sign of opposition. In May of 1998, after five years and four months in prison, and thanks to the efforts of Amnesty International, Pope John Paul II and the Government of Canada, I was released with the condition of going into exile.