Cuba released a first group of prisoners on Wednesdaymostly linked to the anti-government protests of July 2021, reported a human rights organization and a released woman.
The day before, the Cuban regime reported that would gradually release 553 people as a gesture towards Pope Francis and within the framework of the year of jubilee – a Catholic celebration of reconciliation – that began this January.
The announcement came on the same day that the administration of the outgoing president Joe Biden informed his decision remove the Caribbean nation from the list of countries sponsoring terrorisman inclusion that caused a strong financial impact on the island, hindering foreign trade and worsening the economic crisis.
In the morning she was released Reyna Yacnara Barreto Batista24 years old, reported the young woman herself in a telephone conversation with The Associated Press from the province of Camagüey. Together with her, they gave their freedom documents to eight men, all of whom except one were imprisoned for reasons related to the protests, the woman indicated.
Shortly after, the organization that monitors imprisonments on the island, the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, released a list with the names of 14 released —including Barreto Batista— who would also have been released.
Among the first people to be released from prison are Dariel Cruz García, Lisdiany Rodríguez Isaac and Donaida Pérez Paseiro, considered prisoners for political reasons according to the main human rights NGOs in Cuba. They have all been released from prison (which legally is not the same as released).
In a program on official Cuban television dedicated to explaining the releases, the vice president of the Supreme People’s Court of Cuba, Marcela Sosa, indicated the scope of the releases.
“It is not an amnesty or a pardon because it entails the full extension of the sanction,” said Sosa. “They are early release benefits”added the official who indicated that it even reached people with “dissimilar” crimes such as property crimes or robbery with force.
Barreto Batista, a professional tattoo artist who had been sentenced to four years in prison after participating in the 2021 protests, reported that “at three in the morning they touched me, I was sleeping (in the cell) and they told me to collect all my tattoos.” things that were free.” Then, along with eight men, they were taken to a center where they were warned that It was not a pardon or a pardon, so they had to maintain good behavior or they could be sent to prison again.
According to Cuban law, conditional release or extra-penal license does not extinguish sentences, so those released in principle They would not be able to carry out procedures such as requesting passports or leaving the country.
“I’m at home with my mom. The whole family celebrating,” added Barreto Batista.
Another half dozen people among family members and friends of incarcerated people with whom he communicated AP They indicated that they had no news of their own and were waiting to find out whether or not they were affected by the measure.
“Maykel (Castillo) called me a while ago, nothing has moved in his prison,” he told AP the art curator and activist Anamelys Ramos. Ramos is a personal friend and usually transmits the messages sent by the plastic artist. Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara and the rapper Castillo, known as Maykel Osorbo, two of the most visible prisoners and with strong opposition to the Cuban regime.
In November, the non-governmental organization Justice 11J confirmed that 554 citizens remain detained in connection with the 2021 demonstrations. Smaller protests added more arrests between 2022 and 2024.
In December 2011, then-dictator Raúl Castro announced the humanitarian pardon of some 2,900 prisoners—especially the elderly, the sick, or young people with good behavior—none of whom had a history of opposing the government. The measure was a gesture to the visit of Pope Benedict XVI to the island that he would make the following year.
Others 3,500 prisoners without political records received the same benefit in September 2015 before Francisco’s arrival in Cuba.
The release of 553 prisoners is a “sign of great hope,” declared this Wednesday the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Parolin.
“The news of the announced gradual release of 553 Cuban prisoners is a sign of great hope at this beginning of the Jubilee,” the cardinal celebrated in statements collected by Vatican Newsthe official news portal of the Holy See.
After learning of Washington’s step, the Cuban regime considered the announcement a “decision in the right direction”, although it clarified that in its opinion it is a “very restricted” step, since multiple economic sanctions are still in force.
(With information from AP and EFE)
