Pastor Lorenzo Rosales Fajardo released from prison

Cuban Protestant pastor Lorenzo Rosales Fajardo was released from Mar Verde prison on 17 January as part of a mass amnesty following the United States’ announcement that it would remove Cuba from its list of state sponsors of terrorism.

Pastor Rosales Fajardo was one of 553 political prisoners chosen to be released as a gesture of goodwill. Earlier this week, the Afro-Cuban Yoruba religious leader, Donaida Pérez Paseiro was released from prison. Her husband, also a Yoruba leader, Loreto Hernández García has not been freed.

Pastor Rosales Fajardo was violently arrested along with hundreds of others after participating in peaceful protests that took place across Cuba on 11 July 2021. He was eventually tried and convicted of false charges of ‘disrespect’, ‘assault’, ‘criminal incitement’ and ‘public disorder’ on 20 and 21 December 2021.

In May 2022 he and his family were informed that he had been sentenced to seven years in prison, which was one year less than the eight-year sentence that was initially communicated in a document sent from the Permanent Mission of Cuba in Geneva to the United Nations (UN). He was initially held in Boniato Maximum Security Prison, but in early 2023 his family reported that he had been moved to a minimum-security prison closer to their home.

In February 2024 the UN Working Group on Arbitrary Detention adopted the opinion that Pastor Rosales Fajardo’s detention was arbitrary.

CSW’s Director of Advocacy Anna Lee Stangl said: ‘CSW welcomes the release of Pastor Lorenzo Rosales Fajardo and of Donaida Pérez Paseiro, neither of whom should ever have spent a day in detention in the first place. They have endured abusive treatment and been forcibly separated from their spouses and children since July 2021. We call on the Cuban government to immediately release Loreto Hernández García, and to ensure that Pastor Rosales Fajardo and all political prisoners and their families are free to enjoy their freedom without any further harassment.’