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The journalist Norges Rodríguez warned this Friday that it is false that all 2,010 prisoners pardoned by the Cuban regime are political prisoners, in response to a wave of misinformation that spread on social media following the official announcement.
The Cuban government presented the pardon as a humanitarian and sovereign gesture in celebration of Holy Week, based on Article 90, clause II of the Constitution, and announced it through the Presidency and the official newspaper Granma.
"The Cuban regime announced the pardon of over 2,000 prisoners. Today, many media outlets and accounts of journalists and influencers claimed that all of them are political prisoners. This is not true. I suggest consulting the Cuban organizations that monitor this issue," wrote Rodríguez, director of YucaByte, on his social media account X.
The journalist recommended reaching out to four independent organizations specialized in monitoring prisoners in Cuba: Cubalex, Justicia 11J, the Cuban Observatory of Human Rights (OCDH), and Prisoners Defenders.
The confusion has a structural explanation: the pardon primarily benefits common prisoners, and the regime explicitly excludes those convicted of "crimes against authority," which is precisely the penal category under which the majority of the demonstrators from July 11, 2021 were prosecuted.
This means that the most emblematic political prisoners are not included. Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara, from the San Isidro Movement, sentenced to five years, and Maykel "Osorbo" Castillo, sentenced to nine years, remain incarcerated. Otero Alcántara began a hunger strike in December 2025 from the Guanajay prison, and his health has deteriorated significantly.
The figures from independent organizations contrast sharply with the official narrative. Prisoners Defenders reports 1,214 political prisoners in Cuba as of the end of February 2026. Justicia 11J counts at least 760, including 358 from the 11J protests, 112 individuals vulnerable due to health or age, and 176 activists.
Until the morning of this Friday, the OCDH confirmed that only 27 political prisoners had been released as part of the previous agreement with the Holy See, announced on March 12. The organization termed this progress as "poor" and demanded a process that is "swift and transparent" for the release of all prisoners of conscience.
This is the second pardon of 2026 and the fifth since 2011, benefiting more than 11,000 individuals in total. The first occurred on March 12, when the regime announced the release of 51 prisoners following mediation by the Vatican, after a meeting between Pope León XIV and Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno Rodríguez. Of those 51, Prisoners Defenders confirmed that at least five were political prisoners.
The opposition figure José Daniel Ferrer was direct in his assessment: "Pardons are not the solution", and he accused the regime of using the measure to "get out of trouble." The artist Ulises Toirac, for his part, questioned the number and denounced a selective trick, pointing out that 2,000 is not just any number. It responds to something larger.
Since the protests on July 11, Prisoners Defenders has documented a cumulative total of 1,981 political arrests as of February 2026, which illustrates the extent of the repression that no mass pardon of common prisoners can hide or compensate for.
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