Cuba began releasing some prisoners on Wednesday as part of talks with the Vatican, a day after President Joe Biden’s administration announced its intention to lift the US designation of the island nation as a state sponsor of terrorism. Gave.
More than a dozen people who were convicted of various crimes — and some of whom were arrested after taking part in historic 2021 protests — were released during the day, according to Cuban civic groups following cases of detentions on the island. Was released during.
Among those freed was Reyna Yacanara Barreto Batista, a 24-year-old tattoo artist who was detained in the 2021 protests and sentenced to four years in prison for assaults and public disorder. He was released from a prison in Camagüey state and told The Associated Press that eight people had also been released with him.
On Tuesday, the Biden administration said it had notified Congress of its intention to remove Cuba’s designation as part of an agreement backed by the Vatican. Cuban authorities will release some of them before Biden’s administration ends on Jan. 20, officials said.
Hours later, Cuba’s Foreign Ministry said the government had informed Pope Francis that it would gradually release 553 convicts as authorities explore legal and humanitarian ways to do so.
Havana did not link the release of the prisoners to the US decision to remove the designation, but said it was “in the spirit of the Ordinary Jubilee of the Year 2025 announced by His Holiness”, referring to the Vatican’s once-every-25-year tradition. A jubilee in which Catholic pilgrims make a pilgrimage to Rome.
The Cuban Observatory of Human Rights, one of the civil groups, said that as of 4 p.m. EST, 18 people, including Barreto Batista, had been released.
“At three in the morning they knocked,” Barreto Batista told the AP by phone. “I was sleeping (in the cell) and they told me to gather all my stuff so I could be free.”
She said she and eight others were warned that this was not a pardon or amnesty and that they had to behave well or they could be sent back to prison.
“I’m at home with my mother,” he said. “The whole family is celebrating.”
In July 2021, thousands of Cubans took to the streets to protest against widespread power outages and shortages amid a severe economic crisis. The government’s crackdown on protesters, which included arrests and detentions, was criticized internationally, while Cuban officials blamed US sanctions and a media campaign for the unrest.
In November, Justice 11J, another Cuban NGO, said 554 people were detained in connection with the protests.
Biden intends to reverse the US designation of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism as early as next week after President-elect Donald Trump takes office and Secretary of State-designate Marco Rubio takes the post of America’s top diplomat. is likely to.
Rubio, whose family left Cuba before the communist revolution that brought Fidel Castro to power in the 1950s, has long been a supporter of sanctions on the communist island.
