Cuba Keeps Promise and Releases 7 Political Promises - July 14, 2010

The first seven of 52 political prisoners that Cuba promised to release were freed Monday.  They traveled by Air Europa to Madrid, escorted by Cuban officials. 

One of those released was Omar Ruiz who had been serving a 12-year sentence for treason.  He told Associated Press (AP) that he and six other former inmates were taken by van to the Jose Marti International Airport in Havana where they were reunited with waiting relatives in a room set aside for the purpose.  The AP managed to contact Ruiz while he and the others were walking along the tarmac to the plane.  Ruiz said that “they are watching us.  That is why I won’t consider myself free until I arrive in Spain.”

Those released were a part of an agreement between the government of President Raul Castro and the Roman Catholic Church that will eventually lead to the release of 52 Cubans whom human rights groups say are jailed for their political beliefs.  The process will take three of four months to complete.  The deal was brokered by Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos.

Another 13 currently incarcerated opposition activists and dissidents will soon go free.  It isn’t known if they will be allowed to remain in Cuba or will have to leave the island nation.  Although they may remain in Spain, the seven released yesterday may do so.  However, both the US and Chile have offered them asylum as well.

Meanwhile, family members were given a few days notice that they would be leaving the country for good.  According to Irene Viera, wife of community organizer Julio Cesar Galvez, “Sunday they performed medical checkups, did paperwork for the passports and told us to get ready starting today.  I’m very nervous about it all.”

In March 2003, when the world was focused on the start of the war in Iraq, Cuba arrested 75 opposition activists.  They had been accused of taking money from the US government to destabilize Fidel Castro’s communist government.  The US and the arrested all denied the charges.  Since then, 23 have been freed, meaning that if Cuba keeps its promise, all 75 will be soon be released.

According to Elizardo Sanchez, head of the Cuban Commission on Human Rights and National Reconciliation, before Monday’s releases Cuba was holding 167 political prisoners, the fewest since Fidel Castro took power on January 1, 1959.  Sanchez’s Havana-based Commission is independent of the Cuban government but is largely left alone to operate.

According to Amnesty International, when the 52 are all released, Cuba will only have one inmate considered a “prisoner of conscience.”  He is lawyer Rolando Jimenez who was incarcerated a month after the 2003 arrests because he publicly pledged support for the political prisoners.

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