Cuba agrees to release 52 political prisoners

Cuba has agreed to release 52 political prisoners jailed in the biggest release by communist authorities for decades.This happens after talks in Havana with officials from Spain and the Catholic Church.Five prisoners are expected to leave prison soon, the rest will be released in the coming months.Mr.
Moratinos and his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodrigues also attended the meeting in Havana.Cardinal Ortega said five prisoners - whose names were not released - will be released soon and can go to Spain, along with their relatives.
In the press would leave 110 political prisoners in Cuba prison, the number of the island's leading human rights organization, the Cuban Commission on Human Rights.
Commission spokesman Elizardo Sanchez said he was impressed with how the government release more prisoners, but he added that the movement "means a significant improvement in the dire situation of human rights that exists in Cuba.He argued that "forced exile in Spain is not the same as the unconditional freedom.
Laura Pollan, leader of the dissident group Ladies in White and wife of jailed dissident Hector Maceda, said the group felt that Cuba is "A. .. entry of significant change.She told AP news agency he hoped would be "a real change, the first steps to true freedom, true democracy."
But she added that she thought the government could follow through with this promise: "I do not think I'll let go of all, I think that only some will be."A spokesman for the Human Rights Watch, a group based in the campaign, welcomed the news but said: "The government makes a show for the release of prisoners, but then it does nothing to dismantle the repressive machine is to incarcerate people he their continued detention. "recently issued a number of Cuban political prisoners after Pope John Paul II visited in 1998, when the 101 free.Twenty years ago, Fidel Castro released political prisoners, after the 3600 Cuban exiles."Encounter death There was no immediate word on Mr. Farinas, 48, who said he would fulfill his hunger strike, when all political prisoners in Cuba are exempt.Latest news about his condition is reported in Cuban state media, which usually ignore dissident protests.Official newspaper of the Communist Party Granma published an interview with the doctor treating his principal, Armando Caballero.Dr. Caballero stated that the patient had gained weight in the intravenous feeding that went to a hospital March 11 after collapsing at his home in Santa Clara.But a blood clot had formed in his neck and he also suffers from an infection that can make it impossible for additional intravenous feeding, a doctor said Saturday.Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos in Havana, said the move opens a new era in Cuba.Mr. Moratinos, who has participated in negotiations, also expressed hope that can help to "put aside differences once and for all prisoners.The minister said Spain is willing to take in all the 52 prisoners who were arrested in a government crackdown in 2003.
Is the Cuban government under pressure for the release of jailed dissidents as strike, Orlando Zapata Tamayo, died in February.His death prompted a dissident Guillermo Farinas, to begin a hunger strike, which lasted more than 130 days.Cuba has always denied that there were political prisoners, calling them mercenaries paid by the United States to undermine the rule Havana, says the BBC's Michael Voss in the capital.But President Raul Castro has been stung on the basis of international criticism after the death of Mr. Tamayo in February, our correspondent adds.