Priest Alberto Reyes questioned the silence regarding the issue, both governmental and ecclesiastical. "It's as if, suddenly, our political prisoners have been placed in limbo," he said.
Cuban priest Alberto Reyes, one of the most critical voices of the Government within the Catholic Church in Cuba, said that political prisoners have been left in limbo after the talks between the Havana regime and the Vatican.
Authorities announced they would release 553 prisoners last January, an hour after former US President Joe Biden's government removed Cuba from the list of countries that sponsor terrorism. The current administration of Donald Trunp returned to Havana to the list on his first day in the White House.
After the announcement, more than a hundred political prisoners were released. But since late January there has been no news of anyone else being released from prison. Neither the Government nor the church have commented on the matter.
"There has been absolute silence regarding the issue, at all levels, both governmental and ecclesial. It is as if, suddenly, our political prisoners had been placed in limbo, that indeterminate, abstract place, where you know when you enter but where the exits are a mystery," Reyes said in a post on his social networks on Friday.
"What happened to the gesture of "good will"? What happened to the good relations with the Vatican State? Is no one going to say anything? Is no one, from any side, going to ask for explanations? Is this going to be another of those moments in which a thick veil is drawn and we return to the old method of understandings where we all know and we all remain silent?" questioned the parish priest, who provides his services in a rural community in Camagüey.
For the priest "while there is silence and the island sinks, without horizon or hope, they, those who raised their voices for everyone, remain imprisoned, condemned, bound, forgotten."
"It will have to be said again and again, because while everyone's silence descends on this island, the causes that led these people to take to the streets remain: symbolic salaries and real hunger, lack of medicine, paralyzed life, handcuffed freedom, existence converted into a daily circle of struggle for survival," he noted.
The last releases of political prisoners in Cuba occurred on Monday, January 20, when at least 16 people were released from prison. In total, according to independent organizations, 158 were released. The Havana regime said that the releases of prisoners would occur within the framework and "spirit" of the Ordinary Jubilee of the year 2025 declared by Pope Francis.
Relatives of several political prisoners told Martí Noticias at that time that they were desperate due to the lack of information, and that there was talk in the prisons that no other political prisoners would be released.