[4] On 6 August 1994, he was arrested and detained in what Amnesty International called "an apparent round-up of known government critics and human rights activists"; the group designated him a prisoner of conscience.

[5] For several years, Gomez Manzano was married to fellow dissident and independent journalist Ana Margarita Perdigón Brito until she decided to leave Cuba with her daughter and seek exile in the United States in 2012.

[6] In 1997, Gomez Manzano, Marta Beatriz Roque, Vladimiro Roca, and Felix Bonne founded the Internal Dissidence Working Group.

[7] They then published a paper titled "The Homeland Belongs to All," which discussed Cuba's human rights situation and called for political and economic reforms.

[9] Amnesty International again declared the four prisoners of conscience, "detained solely for peacefully exercising their rights to freedom of expression and association", and called for their immediate release.

[16] In July 2005, Gomez Manzano was arrested while leaving his home, allegedly to join a protest at the French Embassy with Marta Beatriz Roque's Assembly to Promote Civil Society in Cuba.

Interests Section in Havana, described Gomez Manzano, Oswaldo Paya, and other dissidents as "hopelessly out of touch", writing, "They have little contact with younger Cubans and, to the extent they have a message that is getting out, it does not appeal to that segment of society.