Havana/Cuba granted conditional freedom to the professor and activist Pedro Albert Sánchez, named a prisoner of conscience by Amnesty International, and against whom a five-year sentence was imposed for contempt and public disorder after participating in the July 2021 protests, the NGO reported this Friday. Justice 11J. The dissident, who since the end of 2024 had a license to serve his sentence at home due to his state of health – he suffers from cancer and is almost 70 years old – said on social media that he refused to sign the notification about his parole.
Sánchez said that an agent visited him on Thursday at his home in the capital to let him know about the change. “It would be accepting that I committed a crime, and that did not happen,” he said.
Pedro Albert Sánchez is one of the Cubans declared prisoners of conscience by Amnesty International who have been released or have obtained some criminal benefit after Washington’s decision to remove the Island from the list of countries that promote terrorism. The leader of the Patriotic Union of Cuba (Unpacu), José Daniel Ferrer, and the opposition member Donaida Pérez have also been released.
/ OCDH
’14ymedio’ also confirmed the release from the Agüica prison, in Matanzas, this Saturday, of political prisoner Félix Navarro. The Cuban Observatory for Human Rights had already reported that the authorities contacted his wife, Sonia Álvarez, to announce Navarro’s release.
“Félix is on his way home,” Annia Zamora, mother of political prisoner Sissi Abascal – sentenced to six years in prison – and close to Navarro’s family, told this newspaper. Zamora also said she had no news about the opponent’s daughter, Sayli Navarro Álvarez, or Abascal, who share a prison, but she said she was excited about the release of her “guide” and friend from prison.
Navarro and his daughter were sentenced to nine and eight years in prison, respectively, just for going out to demonstrate on June 11 in Matanzas, where he resides.
Brenda Díaz, the trans protester sentenced to 14 years in prison for her participation in the protests of July 11, 2021, and forced to remain in a men’s prison, was also released. In an image shared on social networks by journalist Luz Escobar, Díaz appears with her mother, Ana Mary García, who during her daughter’s years in prison demanded her release and denounced unfair treatment by the authorities.
The majority of people who have been released from prison who have been registered by NGOs participated in the social outbreak of 11J. The Cuban Government has not made public a list of the 553 people that it announced it will progressively release. However, he has assured that, as of Thursday, 127 Cubans have been released. The figure contrasts with the more than 6 prisoners for political reasons who have obtained the measure, according to the OCDH registry.
According to the organizations Justicia 11J and Prisoners Defenders, all the beneficiaries have been released from prison, instead of released, something they perceive negatively because the sanction is not extinguished. Previously, these two NGOs, as well as the OCDH and Cubalex, regretted that the measure was not general for all prisoners for political reasons, in addition to considering that the way in which they were released from prison could be a double-edged sword.
In this regard, the vice president of the Supreme People’s Court (TSP) of Cuba, Maricela Sosa, confirmed that these people have not been pardoned or amnestied – but, technically, released – for meeting certain criteria and that, if they do not meet some requirements until the extinction of their sentence, such as that of “good behavior”, “they can return to prison.”
Compared to the 553 people that the Cuban authorities are going to release, Prisoners Defenders registered a total of 1,161 prisoners for political reasons in Cuba at the end of 2024. Justice 11J estimates that 549 11J protesters have been convicted.
This is the first release of prisoners in Cuba since 2019, when authorities pardoned 2,604 inmates. The previous one occurred in 2015, when a total of 3,522 prisoners were released as a “humanitarian gesture” before the visit of Pope Francis.
