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Weekly Report - 08 July 2010 (WR-10-27)

CUBA: Dozens of political prisoners to be freed

Cuba's Roman Catholic Church released a statement on 7 July saying that President Raúl Castro had agreed to release 52 political prisoners, five of them forthwith and the remainder over the next three to four months. The foreign press is interpreting the release as a concession to international pressure over human rights, which could lead to better ties with the European Union (EU) and the US. Certainly this - the largest release of prisoners since Pope John Paul II's visit to Havana in 1998 - is a clear gesture to the EU. But, the reason for this gesture is probably domestic, not international, pressure: the government needs EU assistance at a time when economic difficulties are forcing it to risk social unrest by cutting a workforce which it has described as “horribly inflated" in some areas.

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