The Cuban government late on Saturday freed Arnaldo Ramos, one of 13 imprisoned dissidents who had refused to leave the country and go into exile, his family announced.
“He was freed and I feel very happy,” said Lidia Lima, the wife of the dissident. “They brought him home just a few minutes ago.”
Her husband was now resting in a house in central Havana, she added.
Photo: AFP
Ramos, 68, was part of a group of 52 political prisoners Cuban President Raul Castro’s government agreed to release following talks on July 7 with Archbishop of Havana Cardinal Jaime Ortega.
Of the dissidents Castro agreed to release, 39 were let go after agreeing to emigrate to Spain with their families, but the remaining 13 refused to be exiled.
The agreed-upon deadline for their release expired a week ago.
An economist, Ramos was sentenced to 18 years in jail for dissident activities. He was the oldest member of a group of 75 opponents of the Cuban government arrested in 2003.
Lima said she had received a call from Cardinal Ortega at 12pm on Saturday and was informed that her husband would be released.
“We have decided to stay in the country and not to emigrate,” said the 70-year-old woman, a retired doctor. “At our advanced age, it is difficult to start a new life in a different country.”
Dissident sources say there are about 100 political prisoners still jailed in Cuba, in addition to the remaining 12 on the list agreed with the cardinal.
On Thursday, The Ladies in White, the wives of political dissidents, asked Pope Benedict XVI to press Havana for the release of the remaining prisoners the Cuban government had promised the Catholic Church it would release.
The human rights group met with the pope’s representative in Cuba and told him “we feel cheated,” group leader Laura Pollan said.
Pollan said her group had asked the pope’s envoy, Archbishop Giovanni Angelo Becciu, to ask Benedict “to intercede for the 13 that are still in prison.”
The Ladies in White, winner of the European parliament’s prestigious Sakharov human rights prize in 2005, also met with Belgium diplomats — Belgium currently occupies the rotating EU presidency.
The Belgian ambassador said the prisoners would be released, Pollan said.
And then on Wednesday, Ladies in White members met with Spanish diplomats.
“I am happy,” Bertha Soler, one of the leaders of the group, said after learning of Ramos’s release.
“Arnaldo is not my husband, but he is like a member of the family. We will continue fighting for the release of all of them. This is a new stage,” Soler said.
Cuban National Assembly speaker Ricardo Alarcon said in Geneva on July 20 that the Cuban government wanted to free all of those on international dissident lists who had not been imprisoned for violent crimes.
One of the jailed dissidents, Diosdado Gonzalez, declared a hunger strike last Monday to protest the government’s non-compliance with the accord.
However, he halted it after 48 hours when a security official assured him that the remaining political prisoners would be freed in 15 days or a month.
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