How the Cuban government violated Vatican agreement on political prisoners

Archbishop Paul Richard Gallagher, Vatican Secretary for Relations with States, arrived in Havana in early June with a message: “The Holy See cannot fail to promote both rights and freedoms and their foundation in the transcendent dimension of humankind.” It was the 90th anniversary of diplomatic relations between Cuba and the Vatican, and the prelate arrived as the first envoy since the appointment of Robert Francis Prevost as Pope Leo XIV. A few days after the visit, political opponent Donaida Pérez entered the Guajamal women’s prison in Santa Clara, from which she had been released in January as part of the group of 553 people freed following negotiations between the Cuban government and the Catholic Church.

A little less than a month ago, authorities summoned Pérez to prison. They wanted to warn her to keep quiet, to stop demanding the release of her husband, Loreto Hernández, detained like her four years ago for his participation in the massive protests of July 11, 2021. They wanted her not to make a fuss; her silence in exchange for not returning her to jail. After repeating this question, the officers gave her an ultimatum: “Will you shut up or will you stay?” Donaida told them she would stay. The Villa Clara Provincial People’s Court would later confirm that her eight-year prison sentence — of which she has served four — was reinstated due to “failure to comply with the obligations” of her conditional release. But Donaida, 54, had previously said that, in reality, the January release never happened, that she never felt free; she had simply stopped being in jail and started being at home.

“She never accepted the conditions they imposed on her, the requirements of her supposed conditional release,” her brother-in-law, Jorge Luis García Pérez, “Antúnez,” told EL PAÍS. “She never stopped reporting crimes, maintaining a presence on social media, or communicating with human rights organizations.” The police even told her that if she remained silent, they would guarantee her husband’s conditional release, but, according to Antúnez, “she never accepted it.” He says Pérez always knew being returned to prison was a possibility. “When she found out that (opposition leader) José Daniel Ferrer had been returned, she thought the same thing would happen to her.”

Almost a month earlier, police raided Ferrer’s home in Santiago de Cuba in the early hours of the morning. They ransacked his wardrobe and bed, stole food and other belongings, and took his wife and son. He was taken to prison, where he had recently gone on a hunger strike and where, according to his family’s testimony after a visit, he was brutally tortured resulting in a significant decline in his physical health.

Ferrer has always refused to wear a common prison uniform, adamant that he is a political prisoner. His stance annoys the authorities at Mar Verde, the same prison where he was held until his release in January of this year. According to the Supreme People’s Court, the revocation of his parole is due to his failure to comply with “the provisions of the law” following his release.

The authorities intended for the opposition leader to be held accountable in court periodically, something he had opposed since his release from prison. “Not only did he not appear, but he made it known through his social media profile, in flagrant defiance and violation of the law, that he would not appear before the judicial authority,” the court’s statement reads.

Félix Navarro, leader of the Pedro Luis Boitel Party for Democracy and vice president of the Council for Democratic Transition in Cuba, was also arrested. The 72-year-old, in poor health, was another of those released earlier this year. The reason given for his return to prison was similar: “repeated violations” of the guidelines imposed by the court, including Navarro’s seven unauthorized departures from the municipality of Perico, in Matanzas.

In April, the parole of Jaime Alcide Firdó Rodríguez, 25, was revoked. He is currently in prison 1580 in San Miguel del Padrón, Havana. On the day he was arrested, his father was told he had to report to the police station for a checkup. “I sent him, and when he arrived, they told him it was revoked,” says Alcide Firdó Veranes. “They sent him back to prison because they felt like it,” insists the father, who says that State Security officers wanted his son “to work with them, but he refused.”

Four back in prison and ‘tight surveillance’ of others

According to records from the Prisoners Defenders organization, these are the four people the Cuban government has reimprisoned out of more than 500 released in January: 230 political prisoners and the rest common law prisoners.

Nearly six months after the agreement with the Holy See, Havana has not only returned some opponents to prison but also maintains tight surveillance over many of the released prisoners. These individuals have reported harassment by Cuban authorities, persecution, threats from State Security to self-employed workers to prevent them from hiring them, offers of collaboration with the government, the impossibility of traveling abroad, repeated summonses by the political police, and surveillance outside their homes.

Yaxis Cires, director of strategies for the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH), asserts that while “a diplomacy as old and experienced as the Vatican’s is well aware of this situation and acts in consciousness of the limitations of the Cuban situation,” the reality is that “Havana has failed to live up to its commitment, and its lack of generosity has exposed the use of political prisoners and their releases as bargaining chips.”

Even so, the official Cuban version places the blame for the violation of the agreement made at the time with Pope Francis — within the spirit of this year’s Ordinary Jubilee — on the United States. Johana Tablada, deputy director general for the United States at the Cuban Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said on social media that it was the U.S. government that “failed to fulfill commitments made with Pope Francis” and that “Cuba did fulfill its part of the agreement.”

Although Havana has never stated that the Joe Biden administration was involved in the negotiations, the decision to order the releases came on the same day the U.S. government removed Cuba from the list of State Sponsors of Terrorism, six days before the Democrat left office. On his first day in the White House, Donald Trump returned Cuba to the list, among other things, for sheltering in Havana figures such as Joanne Deborah Chesimard (the well-known Assata Shakur) and Charles Hill, fugitives from justice whom U.S. authorities consider “terrorists.” Since January, the Trump administration has continued to issue a series of executive orders aimed at economically suffocating and isolating the island. In its latest memorandum, it insisted on demanding a review of human rights violations in Cuba and reports on political prisoners.

Although Archbishop Gallagher said during his visit to Havana that “the Cuban people can count on the Holy See for the common good of all Cubans,” the position of Pope Leo XIV remains unknown. He has traveled to the island twice and was seen in photos sharing the table with a Cuban family.

The three popes who preceded him in office also focused on the island. During the visit of John Paul II in 1998, Fidel Castro released some 200 people from prison. A total of 75 dissidents from the so-called Black Spring were released in 2010 after talks mediated by the Holy See. The same happened on the eve of Benedict XVI’s visit to Cuba in 2011 and that of Pope Francis in 2015. On the occasion of Leo XIV’s election, Cuban President Miguel Díaz-Canel let him know in a message that they shared “the desire to promote dialogue and peace.”

Amid the crisis facing the island, several religious institutions have raised their voices in response to the call to “do something to save Cuba.” Members of the Archdiocese of Santiago de Cuba recently made a plea to “those who hold the highest responsibilities when it comes to making decisions for the good of the nation.” “It is time to create a climate, free from internal and external pressures and conditions, where the structural, social, economic, and political changes that Cuba needs can be implemented,” they said.

Cires, of the OCDH, for his part, believes it is “crucial” that the Holy See “in some way support” the Cuban bishops’ message, “which underscores the need for structural changes in the political, economic, and social spheres.” “It is essential to find ways to ensure that the dignity and freedom of Cubans are respected,” he insisted.

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