Eliécer Ávila

Eliécer Ávila Cicilia is a political activist and opponent of the Cuban government. He was born in 1985 in Puerto Padre, Las Tunas, Cuba. He graduated in 2009 from the University of Computer Science (UCI).

Eliécer became a well-known figure in 2008 for confronting the then President of the National Assembly, Ricardo Alarcón. The video of the student assembly in which Eliécer asked uncomfortable questions to the revolutionary leader spread through the networks and marked the beginning of this young Cuban's oppositional and dissenting path.

Ávila, a member of the Union of Young Communists (UJC) and a prominent activist of the University Student Federation (FEU), approached Alarcón asking him, among other things, about the purchasing power of Cubans and their right to travel freely abroad. From his position as a young communist actively combating the illegalities that occurred within the UCI, Eliécer expressed his intention to help in building a socialism that needed changes but always from within the revolution.

In 2013, he participated in a tour of different countries in Europe and North America, and upon his arrival at the Jose Marti International Airport, he was interrogated by state security forces and his family became victims of reprisals. Like other activists who carry out their activities within the island, he experienced arrests and confiscation of documents and computers.

He is the founder in 2014 and current president of the Cuban opposition party Somos Más (SOMOS+), in which its foundations and program self-proclaims as "a movement that calls on all Cubans who wish to participate in the beautiful and challenging adventure of helping to build a modern, prosperous, and free country."

Ávila resides in Miami with his wife and daughter.