A moment after President Joe Biden’s administration announced his intention to remove Cuba’s status as a state sponsor of terrorism, the island country started releasing some captives on Wednesday as part of discussions with the Vatican.
Following the detention of prisoners on the island, more than a few people who were convicted of various acts and some of them were detained after taking part in the historical 2021 demonstrations were later released during the day, according to Caribbean civic organizations.
Tattoo artist Reyna Yacnara Barreto Batista, 24, who was detained in the 2021 demonstrations and given a four-year prison sentence for problems and open condition, was one of the ones who was freed. She was freed from a jail in Camaguey and reported to The Associated Press that eight other gentlemen had been detained along with her.
The US government announced to Congress on Tuesday that it would be notified of Cuba’s intention to leave the country as part of a package facilitated by the Vatican. Several of them would be released by Cuban officials before Biden’s administration ends on January 20, according to officials.
Hours later, according to the Caribbean foreign ministry, the government informed Pope Francis that the country would slowly release 553 of the country’s prisoners as authorities looked into legal and humanitarian options.
Havana did not directly equate the prisoners ‘ release with the US’s decision to remove the title, but said it was “in the nature of the Common Jubilee of the year 2025 declared by His Holiness,” referring to the Vatican’s once-every-25-year history of a Jubilee, during which the Catholic honest make journeys to Rome.
The Caribbean Observatory of Human Rights, one of the civic groups, said that by 4 am EST, 18 people had been released, including Barreto Batista.
” At three in the morning they knocked”, Barreto Batista told the AP over the telephone. ” I was sleeping ( in the cell ) and they told me to gather all my things, that I was free”.
She claimed that she and the eight people had been informed that it wasn’t a pardon or compassion and that they needed to be acting morally or they could be sent back to prison.
” I am at home with my family”, she said. ” The whole family is celebrating”.
In response to common power outages and shortages in Cuban cities in July 2021, hundreds of Cubans took to the streets to protest a severe economic crisis. The government’s assault on the protesters, which included prosecutions and suspensions, sparked worldwide criticism, while Cuban authorities blamed US sanctions and a media strategy for the turmoil.
In November, another Cuban nonprofit organization, Justice 11J, said that 554 people remained in custody in connection with the rallies.
After President-elect Donald Trump takes department and Secretary of State-designate Marco Rubio takes over the place of America’s best minister, Biden’s intent to repeal the US’s classification of Cuba as a state sponsor of terrorism is likely to be reversed as early as next year.
Rubio has long supported restrictions on the socialist area, whose home left Cuba in the 1950s before the socialist revolution that brought Fidel Castro to energy.
