Cuba has started to release the first of hundreds of prisoners it agreed to free following a deal with the United States.
Under the agreement brokered by the Catholic Church, President Joe Biden removed Cuba from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism just days before his term ends.
In return, the Cuban government said it would free 553 people, many of whom were detained during anti-government protests that swept through the Communist-run island in 2021.
While Havana has cautiously welcomed the deal, there are doubts as to how long it will last after President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for secretary of state, Marco Rubio, appeared to hint that it could be reversed.
Speaking at his Senate nomination hearing on Wednesday, Rubio said referring to some of the sanctions on Cuba that the Biden administration rescinded on Tuesday that “the new administration is not bound by that decision”.
Earlier, Trump’s choice for national security adviser, Mike Waltz, had said on Fox News that “anything they [the Biden administration] are doing right now, we can do back, and no one should be under any illusion in terms of a change in Cuba policy”.
Despite the doubts raised by Trump administration officials, Cuba released about 20 prisoners on Wednesday, according to local NGOs.
One of those released was 53-year-old Donaida Pérez Paseiro, who had been sentenced to eight years in prison for taking part in the 2021 anti-government protests, during which citizens demanded that the Cuban government do more to ease widespread food shortages and lower spiralling prices.
In a video she posted on social media, Ms Pérez Paseiro said that the Cuban government had used her and her fellow prisoners as “a bargaining chip” to leverage Cuba’s removal from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism.
In the recording, she also said she would continue to “fight for Cuba’s freedom”.
Dariel Cruz García was also among those who were freed on Wednesday.
The 23-year-old had been sentenced to 15 years in prison for sedition after joining in the 2021 protests.
He told Reuters that officials had announced that he could serve the remainder of his sentence – which has been reduced since he was originally sentenced – at home.
“I escaped from hell to be with my family. I’ll behave myself so I can move on,” he told the news agency.
The vice-president of Cuba’s highest court, Maricela Sosa, said on TV that those freed had neither received an amnesty nor had they been pardoned and warned that they could be re-arrested if they broke the terms of their parole.
There are also still hundreds of families awaiting news as to whether their loved ones will be among the 553 the government has agreed to release.
“They’re desperate, all waiting with tremendous anxiety for a call from their children,” Dariel Cruz García’s mother told Reuters. (BBC News)
