The Cuban government on Thursday said it would release 2,010 inmates from its prisons in a “humanitarian and sovereign gesture,” announcing a sweeping pardon as the Trump administration continues its pressure campaign to isolate the island through a de facto oil blockade.
The announcement, published in the state–run newspaper Granma, is one of the largest prisoner releases in the country in recent years. The communist government said it chose whom to pardon based on the crimes committed, “their good conduct in prison, the fact that they had served a significant portion of their sentence, and their state of health.”
It did not say when the prisoners would be released or under what circumstances.
This will be the country’s second prisoner release this year. Last month, the government said it would release 51 inmates as a goodwill gesture to the Vatican. Cuba has occasionally released waves of prisoners and described the pardon as a customary practice, one that coincided with Holy Week, a widely observed holiday in the country.
The timing of the announcement, however, also comes as the United States has continued to try to pressure its longtime adversary into political concessions, worsening the island’s energy crisis by cutting off its fuel imports for months in an effective blockade. With no fuel supplies, the country has experienced island-wide blackouts and is suffering its worst crisis in decades.
Washington and Havana have acknowledged launchingtalks, but it is unclear to what extent the negotiations have progressed or whether Cuba’s prisoner release was part of the discussions.
A State Department spokesperson, in a statement Friday, said the U.S. is aware of reports of the forthcoming prisoner release, “though it is unclear how many, if any, political prisoners will be released.”
“We continue to call for the immediate release of the hundreds of other brave Cuban patriots who remain unjustly detained,” the spokesperson said.
On Sunday, President Donald Trump allowed a Russian tanker loaded with crude oil to pass through the effective blockade and later signaled he would not stop other countries from sending oil to Cuba. White House press secretary Karoline Leavitt told reporters Monday that there had been “no firm change in our sanction policy” and that decisions to allow other tankers would be made “on a case-by-case basis.”
Russia plans to send a second oil tanker to Cuba, its energy minister said Thursday.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio has attributed the country’s suffering to its own government’s decisions.
“Ultimately, the reason why Cuba’s a disaster is because their economic system doesn’t work,” he told reporters last week. “And for that to change, you need to change the people in charge, you need to change the system that runs the country, and you need to change the economic model that it’s following. … We’ve expressed that clearly and repeatedly over many years, and maybe now there’s an opportunity to do it.”
The Cuban government said those released from prison would include foreigners and Cubans who live abroad, young people, women and adults over the age of 60, but not those accused of committing violent crimes or crimes against public authorities.
It was not clear whether the pardon would apply to those identified by human rights advocates as political prisoners. Prisoners Defenders, a human rights organization, counted more than 1,200 political prisoners on the island this year. Human Rights Watch and other groups have accused the government of arbitrarily detaining protesters and critics, repressing public dissent and denying inmates adequate prison conditions.
Karen DeYoung contributed to this report.
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