Havana/One year after the Cuban regime reached an agreement with the Vatican, in the last days of the Joe Biden Administration, the release of certain prisoners, revoked in several cases months later, Amnesty International (AI) demanded this Monday the release of all political prisoners on the Island. “Cuba must release, without conditions, those who should never have been in prison,” said Ana Piquer, regional director of Amnesty International for the Americas, in a statement issued this Monday.
In it, the organization mentions some emblematic cases, Sayli Navarro Álvarez, Félix Navarro, Loreto Hernández García, Donaida Pérez Paseiro, Roberto Pérez Fonseca, Maykel Castillo (Osorbo) and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, emphasizing: “They should not spend another day in prison.”
AI denounced that the release process announced by the Cuban authorities on January 14, 2025 – one of the last actions of Joe Biden at the head of the White House, in exchange for which he removed the Island from the list of sponsors of terrorism -, “was marked by opacity, lack of public information, absence of clear criteria and use of arbitrary conditions, as well as by the devastating psychological impact on families.”
Furthermore, he stressed that this mechanism “has not included state recognition of the abuses committed in arrests and sentences,” in addition to “the lack of guarantees of non-repetition.”
This mechanism “has not included state recognition of the abuses committed in arrests and sentences”
The organization recalled that “some people released from prison in 2025 were forced into exile and others returned to prison, highlighting the persistence of deep-rooted authoritarian practices and the absence of guarantees to exercise human rights within the country without fear of reprisals.” An example of this were the cases of Jose Daniel Ferrer and Felix Navarrowho were released, but shortly after the Supreme People’s Court revoked their releases.
Various Cuban and international human rights NGOs also considered that the measure was “opaque, incomplete, unfair and fraudulent.” They have also pointed out that more than half of those released at that time were ordinary prisoners and not prisoners for political reasons.
AI said that “although this process freed at least 211 people for political reasons, selective or conditional releases do not replace the authorities’ obligation to cease the criminalization of freedom of expression or to guarantee a fair trial.”
The person who also condemned that announcement was the Justicia 11J platform. In a report published on January 15 –Neither free nor all: Conjunctural nature and repressive conditions of releases in Cuba. He pointed out that in the releases there was a “discretionary and non-linear management of the process, adjusted to political logic and not to verifiable legal criteria.”
“In no case were these full freedoms. The released people were subject to revocable prison benefits, with restrictions on movement, police surveillance, frequent summonses and explicit threats of return to prison. Throughout 2025, more than 80 incidents of harassment were documented after release,” he stressed.
“A considerable number of people deprived of liberty for political reasons were not considered in the process”
At the same time, he added, “a considerable number of people deprived of liberty for political reasons were not considered in the process. Among them are people recognized as prisoners of conscience by international organizations, beneficiaries of protection measures from the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights, and citizens who did not receive any type of benefit despite meeting criteria that also applied to those who were released.”
The United States, which upon the arrival of Donald Trump to the presidency toughened its policy against the Cuban regime, has, however, always remained aware of the political prisoners.
This Sunday, the US embassy in Havana reported the meeting between Mike Hammer, head of mission in Cuba, and former political prisoner José Daniel Ferrer, exiled in the United States, as well as activist Rosa María Payá, member of the Inter-American Commission on Human Rights.
In a postthe diplomatic headquarters points out that in the dialogue “they touched on many topics, including their concern for all political prisoners and their families.”
“In addition to these political prisoners, there are hundreds of other Cubans who are unjustly imprisoned”
The same account had published a video on January 10 in which embassy officials appear holding photographs and mentioning some prisoners, such as Maykel Castillo, Yosvany Rosell García, Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara either Sissi Abascal Zamora. The message is closed by Hammer himself, who concludes by saying that, “in addition to those political prisoners, there are hundreds of other Cubans who are unjustly imprisoned” and demanded the release of all of them.
That message went viral in a matter of days and reached more than a million views. Given this, the diplomatic headquarters indicated that this level of reach is due to the fact that “Cubans, without a doubt, want political prisoners to be released. Join the request that all those who are unjustly imprisoned be released.”
In the latest report from the NGO Prisoners Defenders realizes that Cuba closed 2025 with 134 new political prisoners, to end the year with 1,197 in total. The Madrid-based organization reported that during the month of December alone, 10 new cases were registered, seven men and three women, the majority from the east of the country and half of them accused of the alleged crime of “propaganda against the constitutional order.”
