This is the entire interview as it appears today on The Huffington Post*:

Today I had the opportunity to interview Pedro Arguelles, one of the 52 political prisoners planned to be released following recent negotiations between Cuban President Raul Castro, Havana Archbishop Cardinal Jaime Ortego, and Spain's Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos. The first group of released prisoners were flown out of Havana heading to Madrid this evening. An audio of the interview, in Spanish of course, can be heard here. Following is a transcript in English.

Interview with Pedro Arguelles

Yoani Sanchez: What is your current situation? Where are you and what have they told you?

Pedro Arguelles: I'm in the provincial prison of Canaletas in Ciego de Avila. And what I have been told is on Saturday, July 10, I went to the office of the head of the prison and there they put me through on the phone to talk to the Archbishop of Havana, Cardinal Jaime Ortega. He informed me that I was on the list of those who would leave for Spain if I would agree to go. I told him that no, I had no interest in leaving my country. He asked me about my wife as well, if she would have any interest. I said no. Well, he told me, he would report back and he said goodbye. That is all I have been told, they haven't told me anything more, I'm here waiting for events and their development.

Yoani Sanchez: Pedro, do you think these releases will strengthen or weaken the dissident movement and independent journalism inside Cuba?

Pedro Arguelles: Well, look, whether or not it will affect the strength honestly I can't say right now because I am here inside and I've been here seven and a half years, here in the prison. I know there are new groups, I know there are new people doing independent journalism, carrying on the civil struggle. I think it doesn't weaken it because in any case there are new pines, as our apostle Jose Marti said, and well, since 1976 when the first cell of the Cuban Committee for Human Rights was created in the Combinado del Este prison, that was the first cell, and we could get to this point because there have been relays, reliefs, there have been people who have carried on, people who died, new people coming out into the public arena. So I think that, ultimately, here we fulfill the law that everyone has the right and the freedom to decide for their own person, my brothers who would like to go I have absolutely nothing against them, that is their sovereign decision, it is their freedom. I make use of the thoughts of Marti who said that the duty of a man is to be where he is most useful. I believe that here is where I am most useful, that this is my place to fight for the rights and freedom inherent in the dignity of the human person and this is where I want to be. I don't want to be in any other place, here on the front line of combat facing the Castros' totalitarian regime.

Yoani Sanchez: And what will Pedro Arguelles do once he is outside Canaletas prisons?

Pedro Arguelles: Continue what we started in mid-1992 when I joined the Cuban Committee for Human Rights here in Ciego de Avila and then in 1998 founded the Ciego de Avila Independent Journalists Cooperative. Continue to denounce human rights violations and continue with the independent press and civil struggle. In order to achieve what we have so longed for and suffered for, the transition to democracy in Cuba.

Yoani Sanchez: Well, Pedro, thank you very much and we really hope that your name is among the next to be freed. We wish so much to give you that embrace so long postponed.

Pedro Arguelles: Some day it will happen, and I too am longing to meet with all all these new pines that have arisen.

Yoani Sanchez: Well, thank you very much.

Pedro Arguelles: A hug.

The #OZT I accuse the Cuban government Campaign has learned from Yoani Sanchez that Dr. Darsi Ferrer has received a 1 year and 2 months sentence.

The tribunal acknowledged Dr. Ferrer’s time served without a trial, and has apparently sent him home to serve the rest of his sentence (three months) under house arrest.

by Yoani Sánchez for The Huffington Post

The Catholic Church in Cuba seems determined to play a new social role in the face of the inevitable changes that lie ahead for the island. Senior church leaders finally condemned the "repudiation rallies" targeting the Ladies in White, and expressed support for their demands to release of political prisoners. In an unusual gesture, the cardinal himself met with them and offered assurances that he had obtained a commitment from the authorities to end the repressive actions against their peaceful group. In a show of further support, he celebrated mass at Santa Rita's, where the wives, mothers and daughters of the political prisoners, and the women who support them, pray every Sunday, before marching from the church to demand freedom.

As in the other Latin American countries once colonized by Spain, the Catholic church on the island carries enormous weight with the movement for civic engagement. Its influence exceeds that of the syncretic cults with African elements, and the increasingly energetic and numerous Protestant denominations that have come to Cuba, almost all of them from the United States. Relations between the church hierarchy and the revolutionary government have gone through different stages since January 1959. By the sixties the conflicts had already become very sharp, particularly due to atheism being a part of the official ideology, as well as the confiscation of the religious colleges. Entering a church came to be seen as a counterrevolutionary act, and those aspiring to Communist Party membership knew they could not even baptize their children. For more than twenty years Christmas celebrations were forbidden and many churches were left without priests.

In the late eighties, relations began to thaw, after the publication of the book "Fidel and Religion" by the Brazilian priest, Frei Betto, and contacts with the liberation theologians. Ultimately, in 1991, in an unexpected turn of events, the Fourth Communist Party Congress agreed to accept people with religious beliefs into the Party. In 1998, John Paul II visited Cuba and expressed himself clearly: "Let Cuba open itself to the world, and let the world open itself to Cuba." As a result of this historic visit, the church regained a part of its social role.

In the more than 50 years of the current government, representatives of the church have assumed different positions to confront the authoritarian abuses of the government. Some demand, with more or less restraint, that the authorities respect all human rights; others request, offering something more than their cheeks, that they be given small concessions in exchange for their unlimited obedience. At the heart of the Catholic church - among priests and laity - confrontational and complacent positions coexist.

Now, in mid-June, the church is celebrating its Tenth Catholic Social Week and Dominique Mamberti, the Vatican's Foreign Minister, is in Cuba to attend. Given the fragile situation of the country, hopefully he will make critical pronouncements which the government may find difficult to assimilate. Two years from now Cubans will commemorate the four-hundredth anniversary of the arrival on the island of the image of Cuba's patron saint, the Virgin of Charity; the Pope himself is expected to visit. Although his visit certainly won't have the same impact as the coming of his predecessor, his presence will unleash many hopes. Few are waiting for the appearance of the Virgin to put Cuban affairs to rights. It is hoped that flesh-and-blood human beings, driven by faith or by the interests of the nation, will try to reach an agreement that will pull the country out of the stagnation in which it is mired. The Catholic Church understands that it cannot remain indifferent in the face of these exigencies.

Yoani Sanchez reports in Spanish via Twitter that yesterday around 1:00 pm opposition activists deployed "Zapata Vive" signs, and shouted "Libertad" ["Freedom!"] on the steps of the [former] National Capitol [El Capitolio].  The building, which used to house the Cuban Congress during the republican era, is a tourist attraction, and Yoani reports that several tourists joined the protesters shouting "¡Libertad!".  It was a very brief act, but the news of it are still circulating around Havana.

By Yoani Sánchez
Award-Winning Cuban Blogger

We will reduce them to obedience to the law. Julio, lawyer