Prisoner release ‘just a trick’

Berta Soler, the leader of Cuba’s Ladies in White human rights movement, has dismissed as a “trick” the Government’s release of 3,522 prisoners ahead of this weekend’s visit by Pope Francis.

Ms Soler, whose husband was among 50 dissidents arrested last weekend at a protest calling for the release of political prisoners, demanded that the government extend its amnesty. “What this regime does is play tricks,” Ms Soler told El Nuevo Herald, the Spanish language newspaper based in Miami. “It practically cleans the jails of common prisoners … but does not do the same for political prisoners because it claims there are none.”

In the past the Church in Cuba has played a pivotal role in the release of political prisoners in Cuba. However, Cardinal Jaime Ortega was strongly criticised by dissident groups earlier this year when he implied that he did not believe there was anyone now in prison for their political beliefs.

Ms Soler said she and other dissidents planned to attend Masses celebrated by Francis, with the hope of talking to him about political prisoners. “I would discuss with the Pope the need to stop police violence against those who exercise their freedom to demonstrate in public,” she told Reuters.

The Ladies in White and male supporters who were detained last weekend were later released.

During the Havana Mass Francis will give First Holy Communion to five children, the first time a pope has done this on a foreign trip, the Vatican says.

Meanwhile, the Holy See’s Permanent Observer to the United Nations, Archbishop Bernardito Auza, said that  the Pope will have a public and a private meeting with the UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon. The “most solid part of the event”, he said, will be the private meeting where “they say things they don’t want to say publicly”. Pope Francis will also hold a bilateral meeting with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who is Security Council president for September.