The Cuban political prisoner Sissi Abascal Zamora, 27 years old, will arrive in Miami this Thursday with a humanitarian visa granted by the United States Department of State, after years of imprisonment for participating in the protests on July 11, 2021.
Her release was handled by the Legal Rescue Foundation, led by the activist and businessman Santiago Álvarez, who announced that the young woman will be available to meet with the press at the organization's headquarters, located at 1929 NW 54 Street, Miami.
"After much work and great patience, because it has truly been a long journey, we have finally succeeded in getting the Cuban dictatorship to allow Sissi Abascal to leave prison and come to the United States to address her health issue," Álvarez stated while announcing the news.
Abascal is traveling accompanied by her mother, the also Dama de Blanco Annia Zamora, and other family members.
Considered the youngest Lady in White in Cuba, Abascal was arrested during the protests on July 11 in Carlos Rojas, municipality of Jovellanos, Matanzas, and sentenced to six years in prison for the offenses of public disorder, disobedience, and assault.
He began serving his sentence on December 27, 2021, and according to the ruling from the Criminal Chamber of the People's Supreme Court —which the organization Cubalex accessed—, his sentence will be completed on November 5, 2027, meaning he had approximately 14 months remaining at the time of his release.
The organization Cubalex described the release as a "conditional freedom linked to exile," noting that the regime preferred to grant her conditional freedom to expel her rather than placing her in a less severe penitentiary regime within Cuba.
During her imprisonment at the La Bellotex women's prison in Matanzas, Abascal faced inhumane conditions: she was denied access to a less severe regime on seven occasions and suffered serious health issues without adequate medical attention.
In August 2025, she underwent emergency surgery for bartholinitis without the regime notifying her family, and at the time of her release, she was still suffering from an ovarian cyst that requires surgical intervention.
In early September 2025, the State Department included her in its "unjustly detained" campaign, which documents violations and denounces abuses within the Cuban penal system.
Abascal is the daughter of the opposition members Annia Zamora and Armando Abascal, a member of the National Executive of the Party for Democracy Pedro Luis Boitel and a signatory of the Varela Project, and she is also part of that same opposition organization.
Your case falls within a documented pattern of conditional releases related to exile that the Cuban regime has used as a political bargaining chip, without acknowledging the arbitrariness of the sentences.
In contrast, political prisoners Maykel Castillo Osorbo and Luis Manuel Otero Alcántara rejected similar offers of freedom in exchange for exile this week.
Cubalex was emphatic on the matter: "The release of individuals imprisoned for political reasons must be immediate and unconditional. Any release that does not entail full freedom, guarantees of non-repetition, and appropriate reparations is insufficient and, in many cases, misleading."
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