Rolando Rodríguez Lobaina

Rolando Rodriguez Lobaina is a Cuban democracy activist. Born on 3 May 1969 in Baracoa, Guantánamo.

He is director of the Alternative Studies Center of the Cuban Youth for Democracy Movement, founded by his older brother Néstor Rodríguez Lobaina. Rolando Rodriguez Lobaina is also head of the Palenque Vision, an independent journalist agency in Oriente Province, Cuba.

A computer engineer graduate from the Cujae University in Havana, Lobaina joined the opposition movement in Cuba in 1996 as part of the Youth for Democracy group. ^[1] Since then, he joined and founded different dissident movements to fight for justice and a free and democratic Cuba. He has spent six years in Cuban prison. He has been arrested many times, but released on international pressure.^[2] May 1, 2009, he was arrested again.^[3]

Today, he is the Director of Eastern Democratic Alliance and the Alternative Studies Center of the Cuban Youth for Democracy Movement, founded by his older brother Nestor Rodriquez Lobaina (exiled from Cuba, now living in Spain). His belief that the best way to empower Cubans is to grant them access to free and reliable information, lead him to launch journals, magazines and finally one of the first audiovisual independent press agencies in the island; Palenque Visión.^[4]

Founded in 2012, the agency has grown from a local effort in the east to a nationally and internationally recognized medium of information with over 20 independent journalists throughout the island. One of the biggest native, independent news agency with the capabilities to produce video content in Cuba. Lobaina's work with Palenque Visión earned him a David Burke Distinguished Journalism Award, awarded by the Broadcasting Board of Governors as a recognition to his courage, integrity and professionalism in reporting news from the island. ^[5]

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