Cuba reportedly will free and deport 'tens' of prisoners to Europe, newspaper says

Cuba reportedly will free and deport 'tens' of prisoners to Europe,
newspaper says

Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Ángel Moratinos will arrive Monday in
Cuba "to complete with Castro's authorities the details of the release
of several tens of political prisoners of the more than 200 in the
country," the Spanish newspaper ABC reports.
Spain, France and Italy would welcome the freed prisoners,
"knowledgeable sources" told ABC. Moratinos will remain in Cuba until
Thursday.
According to the newspaper, "the Spanish government has long maintained
contact with the Catholic Church to favor an improvement in human rights
in Cuba."
Last June 10, Moratinos and Prime Minister José Luis Rodríguez Zapatero
met in Rome with Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, the Vatican's secretary of
state, and Archbishop Dominique Mambertí, the Vatican's foreign
minister, who later traveled to Cuba and discussed the matter with
Cardinal Jaime Ortega y Alamino, Archbishop of Havana.
That day, Moratinos also met in Rome with Cuban Foreign Minister Bruno
Rodríguez to convince him of the advisability of releasing some of the
prisoners, the newspaper says.
Rodríguez reportedly requested that the released inmates be removed from
the island. A precedent for that action is the deportation of four
prisoners to Spain in 2008.
"If the project goes through," ABC says, "in the next several weeks,
Cuba could release an important number of political prisoners – there is
talk of 60 or 70 – who would be sent to Spain, France and Italy." For
more, click here.
[UPDATE:] At a press briefing Monday morning, Moratinos said that he
does not plan to visit Guillermo Fariñas, but that "we would like for
him to stop his hunger strike, because I think that his objective of
calling attention to the situation in Cuba is by now known by the entire
international community. We shall do all that is possible for him to
regain a normal life.
"Aside from that," he said, according to EFE, "I have other worthwhile
objectives for my stay in Cuba that may give results and serve all the
citizens of Cuba and, logically, to the interests of Spain and Cuba,
medium- and long-range." [UPDATE 2:] "Spanish diplomats told the BBC
there were indications the talks could lead to a substantial release of
prisoners," a news item on the BBC website says. [UPDATE 3:] The Cuban
Human Rights Commission, an unofficial but tolerated organization, on
Monday said there are 167 political prisoners, 34 fewer than in late 2009.

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