Organizations that monitor the situation of people imprisoned in Cuba, whom they consider political prisoners, expressed their concern on Wednesday about a pause or paralysis in the releases promised by the Cuban government last week.
The island’s authorities announced last Tuesday that 553 people would receive judicial benefits to be released from prison as a gesture of goodwill during the jubilee year – a moment of reconciliation for Catholics – decreed by Pope Francis.
In parallel, at that time, the government of former President Joe Biden informed Congress of its last-minute willingness to remove Cuba from the list of terrorist countries and among its arguments was the liberation measure indicated by the island.
The first prisoners were released the next day, Wednesday, January 15, and since then, there have been releases every day, including Monday of this week, when Trump took office as president.
Among his first decisions, announced just a few hours after his inauguration at the Capitol, the US president reversed the measure and once again included the island on the list of sponsors of terrorism, a sanction that causes strong economic damage to the Caribbean nation. Since then there have been no new prisoner releases in Cuba, without there being an official explanation.
The Cuban organization Justicia 11J told on Wednesday The Associated Press that there were no reports of new releases in the early afternoon and that the last ones released were from Monday.
Shortly before, in a statement, Justicia 11J indicated that they echoed “the concerns of civil society and the families of political prisoners in Cuba, who today experience even more uncertainty about whether their imprisoned relatives will be released.”
The group, created in 2021 to monitor the imprisonments and trials after the demonstrations complaining about blackouts and shortages – some of which turned violent – and which later extended its reach, asked that the commitments “acquired with the Catholic Church” be fulfilled and that the authorities publish the lists of those who benefited.
On Wednesday afternoon, the Justice 11J database counted 162 released since last week. Previously, the organization had reported about 549 people imprisoned as a result of the 2021 demonstration and about 880 that the group considers political prisoners, contemplating the subsequent protests in 2022 and 2024.
Another group called the Human Rights Observatory based in Spain and which also carries out monitoring, also expressed its concern “about the possible cancellation, pause or slowdown in releases,” according to a statement on its website. This group had recorded 166 releases so far.
According to the Supreme People’s Court, which published comments by Vice President Maricela Sosa last Friday on Facebook, 127 people had been released from prison in the first two days – January 15 and 16 – of whom 121 were granted conditional release. and six, an extra-penal license for health cases.
Sosa clarified that these were not amnesties or pardons, but rather a judicial benefit and that the crimes were as diverse as robbery with force, to threats and acts of disobedience, which is why, as he hinted, not all those released from prison necessarily have links with the protests.
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