Cuba's Roman Catholic Church said Wednesday that the communist government has agreed to free at least 52 political prisoners and allow them to leave the country in what would be the largest mass liberation of prisoners of conscience on the island in decades.
The announcement followed a meeting between President Raul Castro and Cardinal Jaime Ortega, the archbishop of Havana. Also participating was visiting Spanish Foreign Minister Miguel Angel Moratinos and his Cuban counterpart, Bruno Rodriguez.
Many of them may end up in Miami, where Cuban-Americans have kept a close eye on their home country and held spirited rallies for dissidents' freedom.
The most recent and highly publicized rally was a march organized and led by Gloria Estefan for the Ladies in White, an activist group in Havana made up of the mothers of current political prisoners.
In a statement, Ortega's office said that all who had been offered freedom were members of a group of 75 leading political opposition activists, community organizers and journalists who report on Cuba in defiance of state controls on media.
They were rounded up in a crackdown on dissent in March 2003. Some 52 of those have remained behind bars -- most serving lengthy prison terms on charges of conspiring with Washington to destabilize Cuba's political system.
