Armando Valladares Perez (born May 30, 1937) is a Cuban-American poet, diplomat and former political prisoner for his involvement in the Cuban dissident movement.
[4][5] The Cuban government stated that he was convicted for acts of terrorism, and claimed that he had previously worked for the secret police of Fulgencio Batista's dictatorship.
According to Valladares, this led to imprisonment in cramped "drawer cells" in which multiple prisoners were confined in a space too small to lie down, without being allowed toilet access.
[10] Believing that "poetry is a weapon," Valladares also began smuggling his poems out of jail, which brought him a measure of international attention.
[9] In 1981, Valladares's wife Marta – who had met and married him while he was imprisoned – traveled to Europe to meet with government officials regarding her husband's case, and in 1982, 83 U.S.
The move was widely seen as an attempt to dramatize and draw new attention to pervasive human rights abuses aimed at the Cuban dissident movement.
The U.S. State Department responded by accusing Cuba of "mounting a massive defamation campaign against Armando Valladares" to deflect attention from its human rights record.