Poet and artist Armando Valladares, a former Cuban political prisoner, will receive the Canterbury Medal from The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty at its annual dinner in New York City on May 12.
Valladares spent 22 years in prison under Fidel Castro's regime after refusing to display a placard on his desk that stated "I am with Fidel,"
The Becket Fund wrote in a statement.
Valladares was tortured and beaten for years, but he continued to write poetry, which his wife Martha smuggled out of Cuba. Amnesty International recognized him as a prisoner of conscience and was he released in 1982 with the help of then-French president Francois Mitterrand.
After his release, he wrote the best-selling book "Against All Hope: A Memoir of Life in Castro's Gulag," which has been translated in 18 languages. This year is the book's 30th anniversary.
"I have known Armando Valladares for many, many years. And he is a very good person, an honest fighter for peace and for justice," said Elie Wiesel, Nobel laureate, Holocaust survivor, and fellow medalist who will be presenting Valladares at the dinner. "I think he has something heroic about him."
Each year, The Becket Fund honors a person who embodies and lives out a commitment to religious freedom.
The Canterbury Medal Dinner hosts some of the most distinguished religious leaders and advocates of religious liberty throughout the world. This year's May 12 dinner will be held at the Pierre Hotel in New York City.
The Becket Fund for Religious Liberty is a non-profit, public-interest legal and educational institute created to protect the free expression of all faiths,
according to its website.
"Armando Valladares has often told me that during his imprisonment every inch of his body was tortured and imprisoned but he was still a free man because no one could touch his faith," said Kristina Arriaga, Becket's executive director. "He personifies courage and strength and has devoted his life to the defense of human rights around the world."
Last year, Valladares spoke critically of the Obama administration
in The Wall Street Journal for its change of policy toward Cuba without strongly demanding rights for its citizens.
"Our government, if it is to stand on the principles on which America was founded, has an obligation to speak the truth and demand from the Castro regime the rights that the Cuban people are entitled to by their very humanity. To fail to so do is to say, without saying, 'We are with Fidel,'" he wrote.
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