or territorial integrity of the state". Amnesty International adopted her as a prisoner of conscience, and Roque's sister Isabel was invited to meet with U.S. President George W. Bush in Washington, D.C. to discuss the case. Reports stated that Roque lost while imprisoned from vomiting and diarrhea, and was hospitalized in July 2003. On July 22, 2004, Roque was given early release from prison due to her declining health. In 2005, Roque founded the Assembly to Promote Civil Society in Cuba (Asamblea para Promover la Sociedad Civil en Cuba), serving as the organization's director. Varela Project organizer Oswaldo Payá feuded with Roque over the group's formation, accusing her of collaborating with security forces to provide justification for a further crackdown. Wayne Smith, a former chief of the US Interests Section in Havana, criticized her group as seeming "virtually to operate out of the U.S. Interests Section", arguing that this weakened her credibility with Cubans. She was detained again on 27 September 2007 when she was forced onto a bus during a rally Cuba's Justice Ministry building. Police reportedly informed her that they were protecting her from "the wrath of the people". Roque refuses to leave Cuba, stating "We need enough space in our society and we are working for this. We need to make a hole inside the government to live, to think, to talk ... We need to be here. Me in particular. I don't want to live out of my country. This is my country and my country needs what we do." In 2012 she starred in a hunger strike in support of human rights in Cuba, which was denied in the official media of Cuba by showing a video where she accepted food from a neighbor. The video was used by the Government to demonstrate the lack of credibility of dissidents on the Island. She currently maintains a profound difference with dissident Rosa María Paya Acevedo, daughter of former dissident Oswaldo Paya, accusing her of making a profit with her father's memory and carrying out activism abroad, thus protected from the repressions of the Cuban Government. Prizes She is a recipient of the 2002 Heinz R. Pagels Human Rights of Scientists Award of the New York Academy of Sciences and an honorary member of the Canadian, English, and Finnish PEN. References External links Asamblea para Promover la Sociedad Civil en Cuba official site 1945 births Amnesty International