Ramón Saúl Sánchez is known for his nonviolent protests and run-ins with federal authorities. Here are some of his high profile exploits:

July 16, 1997 - The U.S. Coast Guard seizes the boat Democracia after Sánchez told authorities he intended to cross into Cuban waters, a violation of federal law. The boat is returned almost a year later.

December 1998 - The U.S. government seizes another boat, the Human Rights, as it heads toward Cuban territorial waters. Several months later, Sánchez launches a 20-day hunger strike and the boat is returned to the Democracy Movement in May 1999. The boat is paraded through the streets of Little Havana.

April 22, 2000 - Sánchez, demonstrating to keep 6-year-old Cuban castaway Elián González in the United States, is at the home of Elián's Miami relatives when federal agents swoop in and take the boy. Sánchez is knocked down when he tries to form a human chain and later appears on camera with his head bloodied and bandaged.

July 14, 2001 - Sánchez and two other men take their boat into Cuban waters while participating in a flotilla in honor of the Cuban victims who died after a Cuban gunboat sank their tugboat in 1994.

May 15, 2002 - A Key West federal jury acquits Sánchez of charges he broke a presidential order forbidding Florida boats from entering Cuban waters without a special Coast Guard permit.

January 2006 - Sánchez stages an 11-day hunger strike after 15 Cubans make it to an abandoned Florida Keys bridge, but are barred entry into the United States. Bush administration officials agree to meet with him. A federal judge later rules that U.S. officials should not have repatriated the Cubans.

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