Cuban-born artist Geandy Pavón has taken his art-protest “Némesis” to Madrid. The performance consists of digitally projecting onto the façade of buildings the image of Cuban political prisoner Orlando Zapata Tamayo, who recently succumbed to a hunger strike.

In Greek mythology, “Némesis” represents divine justice─a persecutory memory. With this creation, Pavón “imposes the face of the victim upon the assassin, using light as an analogy of truth, reason, and justice.”

The performance has been made in New York, Washinton, and Barcelona before. At this time, Pavón dedicated the event "To the memory of Olga Guillot, and all the Cubans who died in the hope of seeing a free Cuba".

Reporters Without Borders today reacted with delight to the release yesterday of its correspondent Ricardo González Alfonso, along with that of several other Cuban journalists and political opposition figures.

The worldwide press freedom organisation’s correspondent, aged 60, who is originally from Havana, was arrested during the “black spring” of March 2003, along with 27 of his colleagues. The married man, who is father of two children, was sentenced on 7 April to 20 years in prison for “acts against the independence and territorial integrity of the state”. At the time he was president of the Manuel Márquez Sterling society, a banned journalists’ organisation and was head of the magazine, De Cuba, the first such independent publication on the island since the founding of the Castro regime.

González Alfonso arrived this morning in Spain accompanied by his family. Seven Cuban political prisoners, including five journalists also arrived in Madrid: José Luis García Paneque (of the news agency Libertad), Pablo Pacheco Ávila (CAPI news agency), Omar Moisés Ruiz Hernández (Grupo de Trabajo Decoro agency) and Julio César Gálvez Rodríguez (a freelance journalist). The Spanish section of Reporters Without Borders welcomed him on arrival at Barajas airport.

They were the first group of Cuban political prisoners to be released following last week’s announcement by the spokesman for Cuba’s Catholic Church of a wave of releases granted by the Castro regime, due also to the intervention of the Spanish government in the person of its foreign minister, Miguel Angel Moratinos.

These releases, including the long-awaited freedom of our correspondent Ricardo González Alfonso, marks the beginning of the opening announced by the regime. It should not however be allowed to mask the reality of the tragic state of human rights in Cuba.

Reporters Without Borders welcomes these releases but points out that “exile” to Spain cannot constitute a humane and satisfactory solution. These releases should unquestionably include a recognition of the right of political opponents to live in their own country and defend their opinions openly without fear of reprisals.

The organisation called on Latin American countries to intervene more actively with the Cuban government on the issue of human rights in Cuba and to stop closing their eyes to constant violations.

Reporters Without Borders also calls on the United States to at least ease its embargo on Cuba that has been in force since 1962. It considers that the unfair measure against the Cuban people allows the regime to justify some human rights violations including accusing political opponents of being “mercenaries in the pay of the United States”.

This wave of releases negotiated by the Cuban church and the Spanish government is the largest since Raul Castro succeeded his brother Fidel Castro four years ago. The organisation believes that with this move towards openness the regime has genuinely taken a step forward in this longed for and vital process. Nothing can justify that a people should be denied their most basic rights. This situation can no longer be tolerated and these releases should be accompanied by real change, it added.

EuropaPress* - The first seven Cuban dissidents released from prison by the regime in La Habana have arrived in Madrid this Tuesday, and have stated that their release is the result of the protests of their late comrade Orlando Zapata Tamayo, independent journalist Guillermo Fariñas, and of the Cuban exile in favor of freedom in the island.

At a press conference after their arrival at Madrid-Barajas Airport, one of the freed dissidents, Julio César Gálvez, has read a communiqué in the name of all his comrades. In the communiqué they state that the opening of this process of dialog between the Castroite regime and the Cuban [Catholic] Church that has allowed their release “has been possible because of the fight and decisive support of thousands of Cubans for freedom, democracy and peace.”

Within this fight, they have especially highlighted the “martyrdom of Orlando Zapata, the demands of Guillermo Fariñas [expressed through] 135 days of hunger strike” and “the unbreakable faith and resistance of the Ladies in White and the Cuban exile (…) with the important participation of the Cuban [Catholic] Church.”

Gálvez has also thanked the Spanish government on behalf of his colleagues for its “role of companion” in this dialog. Answering a question from a journalist, another one of the released, Ricardo González Alfonso, has assured them that they do not feel “manipulated” by the Castroite regime.

The [Spanish] Undersecretary [of Foreign Affairs] for Latin America, Juan Pablo de Laiglesia, who was with the released at the conference, remarked that the Spanish government will work to “facilitate their integration into Spanish society.”

These seven political prisoners —that are part of a larger group of 20 who, according to the Archdiocese of La Habana, have already consented to travel to Spain after being released from prison— will spend two days in several hotels in Madrid until [several Spanish NGOs] take charge of them and distribute them around reception centers in different parts of the country. These NGOs have offered shelter, monetary support and employment advice to all Cuban political prisoners travelling to Spain.

(FIRMAS PRESS) In Cuba, one is jailed or released for reasons of state, not of law. Raúl Castro has decided to free 52 prisoners of conscience. It's his least-bad option. This time, the opposition defeated him. The heroic resistance of the Cuban democrats, their relatives and the rest of the dissident movement was destroying the already battered image of the dictatorship. Since 1962, this episode has been repeated with some frequency. The regime fills the prisons and then needs to evacuate them. For half a century, thousands of Cuban political prisoners have been caged without any reason or released for strategic reasons before they could serve their sentences.

How does the regime perform an “outcarceration”? This is where the Catholic Church came in. And this is the novel part. Raúl does not believe in God but does believe in priests. To him, God is an incomprehensible abstraction, while the Church is part of the tangible Cuban reality. For his part, Cardinal Jaime Ortega does not believe in communism but does believe in Raúl Castro. He assumes that Raúl, in contrast to Fidel, sincerely desires to introduce substantial changes in the country's social and economic sectors, because he understands that Cuba's society is foundering amid unproductiveness, corruption and an absolute lack of trust in a clumsy system that has carried it to disaster.

Raúl has discovered a phenomenon that's typical of societies in the process of transformation: to change course, power requires an interlocutor who is foreign to its own nature. Many years ago, Adolfo Suárez told me: “I needed the communists and the socialists to bury Francoism and bring democracy to Spain.” Raúl, who still does not dare to dialogue with the opposition, needs the Church – for now. It's not a bad decision. Maybe he'll get used to it and use it for other changes in the future. It could be useful for everyone.

Raúl, who governs through a group of obedient army officers, feels that he cannot take the issue of amnesty before the Cuban Parliament or the Communist Party, because those institutions, which are in silent revolt, have been trained to obey, not to deliberate. It would be very dangerous for him today to open a debate within structures of power pervaded by an explosive mixture of incredulity with the dogmas of the sect, uncertainty over the practical results of the government's model, and total dissatisfaction with two brothers who have done as they've pleased in half a century of blunders and arbitrariness.

For its part, the Church accepted the responsibility knowing that it was going to be battered by Tyrians and Trojans, because that's one role it cannot shirk: to aid society in tragic moments. That's what we saw in the South Africa of Episcopal Bishop Desmond Tutu and in the Sandinist Nicaragua of Miguel Obando y Bravo. They are very different situations, but the basic issue is the same: the Institution serves as a facilitator of solutions. It becomes a vehicle to accelerate changes and prevent violence. Naturally, it also seeks to regain its influence. Nothing evil in that.

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 first dissidents released by the Cuban authorities as part of a deal to free 52 in total worked as journalists or campaigned for political reforms.
They were arrested in 2003, during what became known as the Black Spring. Some 75 activists were jailed during the crackdown.

Like many Cuban dissidents, the prisoners were adopted by human and media rights groups like PEN, Reporters without Borders and Amnesty International.

Keeping in touch with the prisoners' families and friends, these organisations compiled what little information was to be had about the men locked up in various prisons around the country.

The seven dissidents flown to Spain are:

Ricardo Gonzalez

Journalist Ricardo Gonzalez worked for the independent news agency Cuba Press and was Cuba correspondent for the media rights group Reporters Without Borders.

He also edited the independent fortnightly magazine De Cuba and was one of the founders of the Manuel Marquez Sterling Association in May 2001, an organisation that trains independent journalists.

Mr Gonzalez was arrested in March 2003 and sentenced to 20 years in prison for "being in the pay of the United States" and "undermining Cuba's independence and territorial integrity."

He was jailed in Havana's Combinado del Este prison and has suffered from various health problems, including a heart condition.

In 2008 the media rights group named Mr Gonzalez Reporter of the Year, praising his efforts to help "an independent press survive in Cuba". He turned 60 in February.

Lester Gonzalez Penton

At 26, Lester Gonzalez was the youngest of the dissidents detained in Cuba in March 2003.

The independent journalist was sentenced to 20 years imprisonment and sent to a jail in Santa Clara.

To protest against poor prison conditions Mr Gonzalez went on hunger strike several times, Pen reported.

He had to undergo a hernia operation in 2008 and suffered from chronic gastritis and other health problems, Pen said.

Julio Cesar Galvez

65-year-old Julio Cesar Galvez was one of the journalists, writers and librarians arrested in 2003.

Having worked for official Cuban media organisations for 24 years, he became an independent journalist in 2001.

Mr Galvez was jailed for 15 years and locked up in Havana's Combinado del Este prison, where he suffered from respiratory problems and other ailments, Pen reported.

In 2009 his wife, Irene Viera Silloy, told the Committee to Protect Journalists that her husband was allowed one family visit every two months.

She also said that Mr Galvez continued to write in prison.

Pablo Pacheco Avila

Pablo Pacheco Avila is an independent journalist who worked for two independent news agencies. After his arrest in March 2003 he was sentenced to 20 years in prison.

Pen believes that the 40-year-old's health problems in Moron prison in Ciego de Avila are believed to have included acute gastritis and severe headaches.

In 2009 the dissident received special recognition for his work as a journalist under threat at Amnesty International's Media Awards.

Jose Luis Garcia Paneque

Originally a plastic surgeon, Jose Luis Paneque is said to have been sacked because of his political views. He then became an independent journalist and librarian.

Mr Garcia Paneque was sentenced to 24 years in prison after his arrest in 2003.

The 44-year-old is said to have acute stomach problems, chronic pneumonia and a kidney tumour.

His wife and children reportedly left Cuba for Texas in June 2007 after being harassed by the Cuban authorities.

Omar Moises Ruiz Hernandez

Omar Moises Ruiz Hernandez worked for two independent Cuban news agencies before he was arrested in March 2003 and sentenced to 18 years in prison.

He was also involved in the official Partido Solidaridad Democratica (Democratic Solidarity Party).

Human rights organisations believe that he has been treated badly in Nieves Morejon prison in Guayos and had to spent time in solitary confinement and punishment cells.

Like many of the other dissident prisoners, the 62-year-old is said to suffer from various illnesses, including pneumonia.

Antonio Villarreal

The 59-year-old economist and librarian Antonio Villarreal was involved in the Varela Project, a petition asking for a national referendum on political changes in Cuba.

Mr Villarreal was sentenced to 15 years in prison after his arrest in March 2003.

He is believed to have been in bad health during at least some of his imprisonment in Villa Clara province.

By JORGE SAINZ (AP)

MADRID — Spain says seven former political prisoners from Cuba have arrived in Spain after being released in their homeland.
The Foreign Ministry official said the former prisoners — all men — arrived Tuesday on two separate flights from Havana.

They are the first of 52 such inmates that Cuban authorities have promised to free after Roman Catholic Church reached an agreement last week with the government to free those still imprisoned from a 2003 crackdown that jailed 75 activists.

Spain, which took part in the negotiations, agreed to accept the first group.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity in keeping with ministry regulations.

New York City, July 11, 2010—PEN American Center President Kwame Anthony Appiah* hailed the news that journalist Normando Hernández González was freed from prison yesterday morning in Cuba, calling the release “a very hopeful sign” and “an enormous relief to PEN and to all those around the world who have followed his ordeal.”

Hernández was arrested on March 18, 2003, one of 75 writers and activists jailed in a major crackdown on dissent, and sentenced to 25 years in prison for reporting on the conditions of state-run services in Cuba and for criticizing the government’s management of issues such as tourism, agriculture, fishing, and cultural affairs. Held in deplorable prison conditions, he was hospitalized repeatedly over the past seven years. As his health declined, PEN mounted an increasingly urgent campaign on his behalf, awarding Hernández the 2007 PEN/Barbara Goldsmith Freedom to Write Award and pressing the Cuban government to provide him adequate medical care and grant him a humanitarian release.

Hernández’s release yesterday is part of an announced agreement between Cuban authorities and the Catholic Church to free 52 political prisoners, all jailed since the March 2003 crackdown. He will reportedly fly to Spain with his wife and daughter on Tuesday.

“We are enormously relieved that Normando Hernandez Gonzalez is free and reunited with his family, and that he will soon find refuge and the medical treatment he so desperately needs in Spain,” Appiah said. “After a seven-year ordeal that undermined his health and brought endless anguish to his family, he deserves this respite. We salute his endurance and courage, and the endurance and courage of all those who have been jailed in Cuba in violation of their right to freedom of expression. We will be working to ensure that they, too, are released.”

PEN American Center is the largest of the 145 centers of International PEN, the world’s oldest human rights organization and the oldest international literary organization. The Freedom to Write Program of PEN American Center works to protect the freedom of the written word wherever it is imperiled. It defends writers and journalists from all over the world who are imprisoned, threatened, persecuted, or attacked in the course of carrying out their profession. For more information on PEN’s work, please visit www.pen.org.

SANTIAGO, Chile (AP) — Chile says it will take in Cuban dissidents released by the communist government.

A spokeswoman for Foreign Minister Alfredo Moreno says he is trying to help liberate Cuba's dissidents.

The Cuban government has agreed to gradually free 52 prisoners last week after meeting with Cuba's Roman Catholic Cardinal Jaime Ortega, and 17 have accepted asylum in Spain.

Moreno made the offer to Spain's foreign minister, who brokered the meeting. His spokeswoman spoke Sunday on condition of anonymity because she cannot be named under ministry policy.

Moreno did not talk to Cuban officials directly. Cuba has not commented on its promised release of political prisoners.

By MARC LACEY

MEXICO CITY — The Cuban government’s announcement last week that it will release 52 political prisoners has done little to quell the island’s fiercest critics, who are asking President Raúl Castro, “What about the rest?”

But exactly how many people are said to remain jailed on the island because of their political beliefs varies widely, depending on who is doing the counting. On the low side, Amnesty International says that only one confirmed prisoner of conscience will remain in Cuba should the Castro government follow through on its plans to release all 52 in the coming months. That one prisoner is the lawyer Rolando Jiménez Posada, and the human rights group — which coined the term prisoner of conscience in the 1960s — called on Cuba to immediately release him as well.

Before the announcement of the latest planned release, the Cuban Commission on Human Rights, an independent group that is tolerated on the island but not recognized by the government, put the number of political prisoners at 167, which it said was the lowest since the 1959 revolution in which Fidel Castro came to power. Its new figure, should all 52 get out, will be 115.

Other groups, however, say the real figure is much higher. Human Rights Watch does not specify an exact number, but includes in its tally scores of people who have been arrested in recent years for the vague Cuban crime of “dangerousness."

Some former prisoners contend that there is a political element to so many detentions in Cuba — and that the government does not allow adequate legal representation to those it wants isolated. They say the real number probably reaches into the thousands.

“If the Castro tyranny really would like to make a good faith gesture, it ought to liberate all those prisoners in its dungeons,” said Miguel Sigler Amaya, an activist now based in Miami who spent two years in a Cuban prison for “disobedience” and “resistance,” and contends that thousands of fellow Cubans are detained on similarly nebulous charges. One of his brothers, Ariel, a political prisoner, was released last month after suffering health problems in prison, and another, Guido, is among those expected to be released.

The brothers were among the activists and journalists rounded up by the government in March 2003 in a mass crackdown on dissent known as Black Spring. Those detainees were arrested on various charges and convicted after brief, closed trials. Their sentences ranged from six years to 28 years.

For its part, the Cuban government puts the number of political prisoners that it is holding at zero. Fidel Castro, the ailing former president, acknowledged holding thousands of prisoners of conscience decades ago, but in recent years he has said that Cuban jails hold only common criminals and those who illegally acted as paid agents of the United States.

One reason for the varying figures is the definition of who, exactly, is a political prisoner. Another is that the Cuban government has not allowed the International Committee of the Red Cross to visit its prisons.

Agreement on a precise figure is unlikely, as is determining why President Castro chose to make his drastic announcement now. Another looming question is how the United States, which has long called for the release of Cuba’s political prisoners and has welcomed those released in the past, will respond to President Castro’s overture.

“It’s something that is overdue but nevertheless very welcome.” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton told reporters last week.

Acknowledging that its figure is on the low side, Amnesty International defines prisoners of conscience as those inmates jailed for their beliefs who have been found not to have used or advocated violence.

“Some other ones may not be on our radar,” said a spokeswoman for the group, Guadalupe Marengo, who noted that Amnesty had not been permitted to visit Cuba to conduct research in more than two decades.

Amnesty International said Mr. Posada, the one remaining Cuban inmate it considers a prisoner of conscience and thus entitled to immediate release, was given a 12-year sentence in 2003 for “disrespecting authority and revealing secrets about state security police,” after he participated in a peaceful demonstration calling attention to the plight of political prisoners.

Human Rights Watch, which conducted a surreptitious study inside Cuba last year, documented more than 40 cases of people imprisoned for “dangerousness” since Raúl Castro replaced his brother in 2006, as well as scores of other people sentenced for violating laws that criminalize free expression and association.

Noting that Cuba has conducted prisoner releases in the past and then gone on to fill its jails with even more political dissidents, Human Rights Watch said that the country’s judicial system clearly needed an overhaul.

“The international community needs to pressure Cuba to go beyond the periodic release of jailed dissidents and instead dismantle the repressive laws, courts and security forces that put them in prison in the first place,” said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch, who secured the release of six prisoners from Cuba in 1995.

One aspect of the planned release that has critics of the Cuban government upset are reports that once the prisoners are liberated, they are to be flown out of the country, and thus will be far less able to continue their activism and hold the government accountable.


But Cardinal Jaime Ortega, Havana’s Roman Catholic archbishop, who played a critical role in negotiating the releases, suggested that leaving Cuba would be an option, not a requirement, for the former prisoners. The first 17 are expected to travel to Spain as early as Monday, church officials said. Others may choose other countries or decide to stay in Cuba, they said.

The decision, which was first reported by the Roman Catholic Church but later appeared in the Communist Party newspaper Granma, although with no mention that the inmates to be released were political prisoners, prompted the activist Guillermo Fariñas to end the hunger strike he had begun in February to press the government to release ailing prisoners.

But Mr. Fariñas would not take credit for the planned release. A statement that his supporters pressed up to a window in the hospital where he remained Sunday said, “Only Cuba, our nation, has won.”

Antonio Betancourt contributed reporting.

Yesterday, Reina Luisa Tamayo, and a group of other opposition activists were surrounded by a government-stirred mob at the residence of Marta Díaz Rendón, as stated by the former to our campaign via telephone while the events were unfolding. “We have an aggressive mob surrounding us. They want to end Orlando Zapata Tamayo’s family, but we [would first] die [being] dragged, [but] not on our knees. Down with the Castro [brothers]!”

Reina explained that the day before yesterday, the authorities had already tried to intimidate her. “Yesterday [Friday] Major Roilán [of Security of State] came to my house to threaten me [saying that] I could not come out of my house to go to church, and now, we are under siege at the house of our sister Díaz Rendón.”

“We have come in a group of five to her house so that she can come with us to church with us tomorrow [today Sunday] to participate in the Mass. We have tried to come out with her, but they are surrounding us.”

The mother of Orlando Zapata also denounced that one of her sons, named Israel, was detained, and attacked by the police. She also stated that her family is afraid of seeking medical attention because “they [the government] do not have anyone else to attack us, so now they are using healthcare personnel.”

Reina Luisa wished “success and recovery” to all the brothers who are being released from prison and to those who were in hunger strike, like Guillermo Fariñas, and reiterated her compromise with the democratic ideals for which her son died.

UPDATED: We have learned through exiled activist Katy Arboleya that Reina Luisa was prevented by the Castroite mobs from attending Mass this morning. We will continue to monitor and report on her situation.

Our campaign has learned, and reported through Cuban bloggers and other dissidents and opposition activists, the names of three political prisoners who have refused to be banished to Spain. Their names are:

• Pedro Argüelles
• Eduardo Díaz Fleitas
• Regis Iglesias

Here are the names, as reported by our campaign in Spanish yesterday:

• Normando Hernández González
• Julio C. Gálvez Rodríguez
• Omar Ruiz Hernández
• Mijail Bárzaga Lugo
• Ricardo González Alfonso
• Arturo Pérez de Alejo
• Jorge González
• Manuel Ubals
• Alfredo Pulido
• Blas Reyes
• Ricardo Enrique Silva
• José Izquierdo
• Antonio Villareal Acosta
• Lester González Pentón
• Luis Milán Fernández
• José Luis García Paneque
• Pablo Pacheco Ávila

Cuba has pledged to let 52 of its prisoners of conscience go. We hope their release happens, and soon. But there should be no illusions that this gesture augurs fundamental political change on the island that the Castro brothers, Fidel and Raúl, have ruled with an iron fist since 1959. The Castro regime has a long history of tactical human rights concessions -- with the goal of buying time for the regime rather than reforming it. This release would appear to fit the pattern.

Always impoverished and unfree, revolutionary Cuba is in extra-bad shape now. Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the usually discreet archbishop of Havana, recently warned of "a difficult situation" that calls for "quick" changes by the government lest "impatience and ill will" spread. The state-run economy is reeling: Tourism and mineral exports are down, foreign debt is up, and Venezuela is decreasingly able to help because of its own colossal mismanagement. Meanwhile, Cuba's dissidents are gaining in daring and prestige -domestically and internationally. The death of prisoner of conscience Orlando Zapata Tamayo after a 75-day hunger strike, as well as the attacks of government-backed mobs on peaceful demonstrations by wives and mothers of political prisoners, earned global condemnation and set back Spain's efforts to relax the European Union's policy linking economic aid with human rights progress. Dissident Guillermo Farinas is near death on a hunger strike of his own, demanding freedom for 25 political prisoners who are sick.

The regime could ill afford that embarrassment. So the promised release is a victory for Mr. Farinas. And it's no accident that it was coordinated with the Spanish government -or that it came a week after the House Agriculture Committee had approved lifting the ban on U.S. tourism to the island and easing U.S. food sales. Raúl Castro, who took over day-to-day control from his ailing brother four years ago, undoubtedly hopes to encourage these developments, which promise to relieve his cash crunch.

How should the United States respond? As suggested by the fact that cash-only food exports from the United States make this country Cuba's fifth-largest trading partner, "embargo" is already a misnomer to describe the main U.S. policy approach. In fact, along with Venezuelan petroleum and tourism, cash remittances from Cuban Americans, which President Obama already has eased, constitute one of Cuba's economic pillars. We don't generally approve of restrictions on where Americans may travel. But the Cuba "ban" already includes large exceptions for Cuban Americans, trade delegations and educational missions. Neither those visits nor the influx of Canadians and Europeans have had the effect of liberalizing the regime -though they have brought in hard currency.

The 52 inmates represent fewer than one-third of Cuba's 167 political prisoners, according to democracy advocate Freedom House. Among prisoners notably not mentioned for release on Wednesday was Alan Gross of Potomac, an Agency for International Development contractor imprisoned in Cuba since December for the crime of distributing cellphones and laptops in Cuba's tiny Jewish community. And the first five prisoners to be freed reportedly are going to be forced into exile as a condition of their release. Mr. Obama has wisely linked major changes in U.S. sanctions to significant movement toward democracy and freedom by Havana. That condition is still far from met.

Raul Castro Government Continues to Criminalize Dissent

July 8, 2010

(Washington, DC) - The plan to release a group of Cuban political prisoners is a positive step, but the Cuban government should release all political prisoners, Human Rights Watch said today. Cuba should also dismantle its authoritarian laws and practices, which continue to deprive Cubans of their most basic rights, Human Rights Watch said.

The Catholic Archdiocese of Havana announced on July 7, 2010, that the Cuban government would release five political prisoners on the condition that they relocate to Spain with their families, and that an additional 47 political prisoners arrested in 2003 would be released in three to four months.

"While we are relieved for these prisoners and their families, the fact remains that scores of political prisoners locked up under Raul Castro continue to languish in Cuba's prisons," said José Miguel Vivanco, Americas director at Human Rights Watch. "So long as Cuba's draconian laws and sham trials remain in place, they will continue to restock the prison cells with new generations of innocent Cubans who dare to exercise their basic rights."

The political prisoners expected to be released are among 75 journalists, human rights defenders, labor activists, and other peaceful dissidents arrested in a massive crackdown by the Cuban government in March 2003. All 75 were tried in closed, summary trials that violated their most basic due process rights, and sentenced to an average of 19 years in prison.

Since taking over control of the government from Fidel Castro in July 2006, Raul Castro has incarcerated scores of political prisoners. The government has relied largely on a provision of the Criminal Code that allows authorities to imprison individuals without ever having committed a crime, on the allegation that they are "dangerous" and might commit one in the future. A recent Human Rights Watch report, "New Castro, Same Cuba," documented more than 40 cases of dissidents who have been imprisoned for "dangerousness" under the Raul Castro government, in addition to scores more sentenced for laws criminalizing free expression and association.

The Cuban Commission for Human Rights and National Reconciliation (CCDHRN), a respected human rights group that is not recognized by the Cuban government, has been able to document 167 cases of current political prisoners. Because Human Rights Watch has been able to document additional cases of people imprisoned for "dangerousness," Human Rights Watch believes the number of political prisoners is even higher.

Previous efforts by religious, civil, and political leaders to negotiate with the Cuban government have led to the release of some political prisoners. Reverend Jesse Jackson convinced Fidel Castro to release 26 political prisoners in 1984, and Human Rights Watch's Vivanco secured the release of six in 1995. Talks with Bill Richardson led to the release of three dissidents in 1996, and Jimmy Carter's 2002 visit prompted the release of one more. The visit of Pope John Paul II in 1998, after which more than 80 jailed dissidents were released, was the most successful of these efforts.

"The international community needs to pressure Cuba to go beyond the periodic release of jailed dissidents and instead dismantle the repressive laws, courts, and security forces that put them in prison in the first place," Vivanco said.

In the past, the Cuban government has released political prisoners on parole (licencia extrapenal) rather than releasing them unconditionally. By granting them parole only, the Cuban government leaves open the possibility of returning dissidents to prison to serve out their sentences in the future, intimidating them to keep them from exercising their fundamental rights.

Furthermore, in recent instances such as the February 2008 release of four political prisoners, the Cuban government has forced dissidents to choose between staying in prison and being exiled to Spain, which fundamentally violates their rights as Cuban citizens. Public statements of those involved in the negotiations for the planned releases suggest that the first five prisoners to be released were presented with a similar choice. Human Rights Watch recommend that all prisoners, including those from the group of 75, be released unconditionally and be allowed to stay in Cuba with their families.

The announcement of the prisoners' upcoming release came in the context of the 134-day hunger strike of the Cuban journalist Guillermo Fariñas, who was calling for the release of 26 political prisoners suffering from severe health problems. Fariñas began his hunger strike on February 24, the day after a political prisoner, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, died following his own 85-day hunger strike. Fariñas reportedly ended his hunger strike on July 8, following the announcement of the release.

Efforts by the US government to press for change in Cuba by imposing a sweeping embargo have proven to be a costly and misguided failure, Human Rights Watch said. The embargo has inflicted severe hardship on the Cuban population as a whole, while doing nothing to improve the human rights situation in Cuba. Rather than isolating Cuba, the policy has isolated the United States, alienating Washington's potential allies on this issue.