Cuba has begun freeing the first of the hundreds of prisoners it agreed to release after a deal with the United States.
Under an agreement brokered by the Catholic Church, President Joe Biden removed Cuba from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism just days before his term ends.
In return, the Cuban government said it would release 553 people, many of whom were detained during the anti-government protests that swept the communist-ruled island in 2021.
While Havana has cautiously welcomed the deal, there are doubts about how long it will last after President-elect Donald Trump’s pick for Secretary of State Marco Rubio signaled it could be overturned.
Speaking at his Senate nomination hearing on Wednesday, Rubio, referring to some of the sanctions on Cuba lifted by the Biden administration on Tuesday, said that “the new administration is not bound by that decision.”
Earlier, Trump’s pick for national security adviser, Mike Waltz, said on Fox News that “everything they [the Biden administration] we’re working right now, we can fight back and nobody should be under any illusion in terms of changing Cuban policy.”
Despite doubts raised by Trump administration officials, Cuba released about 20 prisoners on Wednesday, according to local non-governmental organizations.
One of those freed was 53-year-old Donaida Pérez Paseiro, who was sentenced to eight years in prison for taking part in anti-government protests in 2021, during which citizens demanded that the Cuban government do more to alleviate widespread food shortages and spiraling prices.
In a video she posted on social media, Ms Pérez Paseiro said the Cuban government had used her and her fellow prisoners as a “bargaining chip” to push for Cuba’s removal from the US list of state sponsors of terrorism.
She also said on the tape that she will continue to “fight for the freedom of Cuba.”
Dariel Cruz García was among those released on Wednesday.
The 23-year-old was sentenced to 15 years in prison for sedition after joining the 2021 protests.
He told Reuters that officials had announced that he could serve the rest of his sentence – reduced from his original sentence – at home.
“I escaped from hell to be with my family. I will behave myself so I can move on,” he told the news agency.
The vice president of Cuba’s highest court, Maricela Sosa, said on TV that those freed were neither amnestied nor pardoned, and warned that they could be re-arrested if they violate the terms of their parole.
There are still hundreds of families waiting for news on whether their loved ones will be among the 553 the government has agreed to release.
“They are desperate, everyone is waiting with great anxiety for the call of their children,” Dariel Cruz García’s mother told Reuters.
